Starred review from August 1, 2011
In 1944, when Parisian police entered a mansion littered with dismembered, rotting bodies, they thought of the Gestapo, but it turned out to be a purely French affair. Historian King (Vienna 1914) has mined the resulting global media circus (not only in France; Time magazine covered it) and extensive official records to tell a gripping story. The villain was a textbook psychopath, Dr. Marcel Petiot: a charming but heartless liar. Despite spending 20 years in and out of police courts, he won elections to local offices in the provinces only to be dismissed for petty crimes. Moving to Paris, he sold narcotics to addicts under the guise of treatment. During the German occupation, he offered to smuggle people out of France, murdering them when they arrived for the journey carrying their valuables. He went to the guillotine proclaiming himself (despite overwhelming evidence) a resistance hero, who killed only Nazis and collaborators. This fascinating, often painful account combines a police procedural with a vivid historical portrait of culture and law enforcement in Nazi-occupied France. Illus.
Starred review from July 1, 2011
The gripping narrative of a twisted serial killer preying on the most vulnerable citizens of Paris during the Nazi occupation.
In King's third work of historical nonfiction (Vienna, 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna, 2008, etc.), he turns to World War II and the city of lights, narrating a frightening tale. When a chimney fire led to the discovery by Paris police of countless bodies hacked into pieces, they immediately suspected the home's owner, the respectable doctor Marcel Petiot, of committing these unspeakable crimes. A manhunt ensued, and Petiot managed to elude authorities for a time. Set against the backdrop of the Allied invasion of Normandy and the Nazi's retreat from Paris, King successfully weaves together the search for Petiot with the world-changing events surrounding the chase. The second half of the narrative focuses on Petiot's trial, during which the atmosphere in newly liberated Paris had changed drastically. The author demonstrates that while Parisians were ecstatic to be free from Nazi occupation, the stink of collaboration was everywhere. People were desensitized to the details of Petiot's crimes because of the abhorrent details that had reached them of the Nazi treatment of Jews. King writes history in an engaging manner; the narrative is fresh and clear, told succinctly, but with a befitting level of detail. The tale never drags as the author accelerates the suspense, revealing Petiot's staggering crimes at an appropriately stirring pace. However, King succeeds in never allowing Petiot's murders to overwhelm their context.
The author's successful transition into the true-crime genre—expertly written and completely absorbing.
(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)
April 15, 2011
A mild-mannered physician by day, Marcel Petiot spent his nights hacking up at least 27 victims and possibly dozens more. He was finally brought to justice by the dedicated Commissaire Georges-Victor Massu of the Homicide Squad. What makes this story particularly unsettling is that Petiot committed his ugly crimes in Nazi-occupied Paris. Sounds like something Erik Larson would write--and like an entirely absorbing read.
Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from September 1, 2011
Just about every nonfiction book about a serial killer on the loose in a big city published since 2004 has been hailed as another Devil in the White City. Erik Larson's tour de force of narrative nonfiction hasn't been matcheduntil now. European-history scholar King, author of the acclaimed Vienna, 1814 (2008), has found a villain who, like businessman H. H. Holmes in White City, was admired and trusted and thrived in an atmosphere of genteel chaos. For Holmes, the Columbian Exposition of 1893 provided young female victims. King's subject, respected doctor Marcel Petiot, tortured and dismembered at least a score of victims during the WWII Nazi occupation of Paris. Many of those were Jews, who came to Petiot seeking refuge from the Gestapo. King deftly adopts a Poe-like, thoroughly eerie tone in his opening depiction of the contents of the basement of a town home in a still-fashionable Paris neighborhood in 1944 and maintains it throughout. He follows the investigation led by Commissaire Georges-Victor Massu of the French homicide squad through the search for Petiot and his trial. The French Prefecture de Police allowed King access to the entire Petiot dossier, which had been classified since his trial. While painstaking in its research, the book has a top-notch thriller's immediacy and power to make one gasp. True-crime at its best.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)
Starred review from July 1, 2011
The gripping narrative of a twisted serial killer preying on the most vulnerable citizens of Paris during the Nazi occupation.
In King's third work of historical nonfiction (Vienna, 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna, 2008, etc.), he turns to World War II and the city of lights, narrating a frightening tale. When a chimney fire led to the discovery by Paris police of countless bodies hacked into pieces, they immediately suspected the home's owner, the respectable doctor Marcel Petiot, of committing these unspeakable crimes. A manhunt ensued, and Petiot managed to elude authorities for a time. Set against the backdrop of the Allied invasion of Normandy and the Nazi's retreat from Paris, King successfully weaves together the search for Petiot with the world-changing events surrounding the chase. The second half of the narrative focuses on Petiot's trial, during which the atmosphere in newly liberated Paris had changed drastically. The author demonstrates that while Parisians were ecstatic to be free from Nazi occupation, the stink of collaboration was everywhere. People were desensitized to the details of Petiot's crimes because of the abhorrent details that had reached them of the Nazi treatment of Jews. King writes history in an engaging manner; the narrative is fresh and clear, told succinctly, but with a befitting level of detail. The tale never drags as the author accelerates the suspense, revealing Petiot's staggering crimes at an appropriately stirring pace. However, King succeeds in never allowing Petiot's murders to overwhelm their context.
The author's successful transition into the true-crime genre--expertly written and completely absorbing.
(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)