The Assassination Of Paris

Much of Louis Chevalier's Paris faced the wrecking ball in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, as Georges Pompidou, Andre Malraux, and their cadres of technocratic elites sought to proclaim the glory of the new France by reinventing its capital in brutal visions of glass and steel.

On March 29, 1971, a Canadian was found brutally murdered in a small Paris apartment. The victim, François Mario Bachand, was a radical member of the separatist Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ), the terrorist group that had been causing havoc in Canada, planting bombs and carrying out kidnappings. Bachand served a jail term in the early 1960s, and after his release he was considered a loose cannon, heartily despised by many associates. It was widely believed that the FLQ had killed one of its own. Twenty years after Bachand died in Paris, author Michael McLoughlin came across a single document in the National Archives of Canada that shed an eerie new light on the circumstances of Bachand's death. The murder, McLoughlin discovered, was not so simple after all. And the deeper he dug, the more complicated - and disturbing - the case became. Last Stop, Paris analyzes the shocking circumstances surrounding Bachand's murder. McLoughlin carefully reconstructs the secret meeting that determined Bachand's fate and the events that led to his assassination on the March day in Paris. It also follows the movements of the FLQ and the RCMP Security Service, and reveals the close international connections that tied revolutionary groups of the later 1960s and 1970s - from Cuba to Europe to the Middle East - to underground agents of the CIA, MI5, and French intelligence. A revealing look at the international web of terrorism and government intelligence, Last Stop, Paris is an explosive examination of the secrets, betrayals and violence that characterized the most tumultuous period in Canada's recent history.

The most shocking, yet factual, book written on the 1997 Paris crash that took the lives of Princess Diana and her lover, Dodi Fayed. This fast-moving but authoritative narrative covers the events leading up to and following the tragedy.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “All the Steve Berry hallmarks are here: scale, scope, sweep, history—plus breathless second-by-second suspense. I love this guy.”—Lee Child Former Justice Department operative Cotton Malone wakes to find an intruder in his Copenhagen bookshop: an American Secret Service agent with assassins on his heels. Narrowly surviving a ferocious firefight, the two journey to the secluded estate of Malone’s friend Henrik Thorvaldsen. The wily Danish tycoon has uncovered the insidious plans of the Paris Club, a cabal of multimillionaires bent on manipulating the global economy. But Thorvaldsen also harbors a hidden agenda—a vendetta—that will force Malone to choose between friend and country, past and present. Starting in Denmark, moving to England, and ending up in the storied streets and cathedrals of Paris, Malone is forced to match wits with a terrorist for hire and to plunge into a desperate hunt for Napoleon’s legendary treasure, lost for two hundred years. It’s a breathless game of duplicity and death, all to claim a prize of untold value. But at what cost? BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Steve Berry’s The Columbus Affair and a Cotton Malone dossier. Praise for The Paris Vendetta “Outstanding . . . Berry has become the modern master of the thriller form.”—Providence Journal-Bulletin “Thrilling . . . exciting and fast-paced . . . a worthy addition to a fine series.”—Wichita Falls Times Record News “Steve Berry gets better and better with each new book. . . . [In The Paris Vendetta] there are assassination plots, searches for hidden treasure, battles between enemies and even friends, and a taste of romance. . . . Bring on the next one!”—The Huffington Post “This well-crafted thriller also offers plenty of surprises.” —Publishers Weekly “Berry has written another amazing blend of suspense and history. Fans will love it, and for newcomers it’s the perfect place to start. . . . [Readers] cannot go wrong with Cotton Malone.” —Library Journal

A riveting true story of murder and detection in 15th-century Paris, by one of the most brilliant medievalists of his generation. On a chilly November night in 1407, Louis of Orleans was murdered by a band of masked men. The crime stunned and paralyzed France since Louis had often ruled in place of his brother King Charles, who had gone mad. As panic seized Paris, an investigation began. In charge was the Provost of Paris, Guillaume de Tignonville, the city's chief law enforcement officer -- and one of history's first detectives. As de Tignonville began to investigate, he realized that his hunt for the truth was much more dangerous than he ever could have imagined. A rich portrait of a distant world, Blood Royal is a gripping story of conspiracy, crime and an increasingly desperate hunt for the truth. And in Guillaume de Tignonville, we have an unforgettable detective for the ages, a classic gumshoe for a cobblestoned era.

In turn-of-the-twentieth-century France, Vincent - an ingenious designer of secret passages - embarks on a thrilling adventure to unlock ancient mysteries in a quest for a lost treasure. Along the way, he battles against dark forces as he tries to discern who he can trust, while racing against the clock. Vincent knows what it means to keep a secret. With his troupe of talented craftsmen - his only family - he designs hidden compartments for priceless treasures and passages for undetectable escape routes. The rich and powerful who hire him pay handsomely for his work - and for his discretion. As Paris hosts the 1889 World’s Fair, the city fills with visitors who come to see the controversial new Eiffel Tower with its gravity-defying elevators, to discover the latest inventions from across the globe, or to scout for prospective investment opportunities. After Vincent takes on an urgent secret mission, his team suddenly becomes the target of attempted assassinations. In a race against time, as death licks at their heels, they puzzle over who could be behind the violence. A client trying to erase tracks to a secret? The dark forces of the occult somehow provoked by their work? Confronted with mysteries uncovered from the past, and a life-or-death challenge that tests the limits of his ability, Vincent will do everything in his power to thwart the menace and protect his friends... if only he can survive.

In June of 1940, when Paris fell to the Nazis, Hitler spent a total of three hours in the City of Light—abruptly leaving, never to return. To this day, no one knows why. Kate Rees, a young American markswoman, has been recruited by British intelligence to drop into Paris with a dangerous assignment: assassinate the Führer. Wrecked by grief after a Luftwaffe bombing killed her husband and infant daughter, she is armed with a rifle, a vendetta, and a fierce resolve. But other than rushed and rudimentary instruction, she has no formal spy training. Thrust into the red-hot center of the war, a country girl from rural Oregon finds herself holding the fate of the world in her hands. When Kate misses her mark and the plan unravels, Kate is on the run for her life—all the time wrestling with the suspicion that the whole operation was a set-up. New York Times bestselling author Cara Black is at her best as she brings Occupation-era France to vivid life in this masterful, pulse-pounding story about one young woman with the temerity—and drive—to take on Hitler himself. *Features an illustrated map of 1940s Paris as full color endpapers.

"Reading this excellent, thought-provoking biography, one is all too easily reminded of Camus’s 1942 novel, The Stranger."—Philip Kerr, Wall Street Journal On the morning of November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a desperate seventeen-year-old Jewish refugee, walked into the German embassy in Paris and shot Ernst vom Rath, a Nazi diplomat. Two days later vom Rath lay dead, and the Third Reich exploited the murder to unleash Kristallnacht in a bizarre concatenation of events that would rapidly involve Ribbentrop, Goebbels, and Hitler himself. But was Grynszpan a crazed lone gunman or agent provocateur of the Gestapo? Was he motivated by a desire to avenge Jewish people, or did his act of violence speak to an intimate connection between the assassin and his target, as Grynszpan later claimed? Part page-turning historical thriller and part Kafkaesque legal drama, The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan brings to life the historical details and moral dimensions of one of the most enigmatic cases of World War II. This compelling biography presents a story with twists and turns that “no novelist could invent” (Alice Kaplan).