The Paris Architect

By: Charles Belfoure

Narrated by: Mark Bramhall

Like most gentiles in Nazi-occupied Paris, architect Lucien Bernard has little empathy for the Jews. So when a wealthy industrialist offers him a large sum of money to devise secret hiding places for Jews, Lucien struggles with the choice of risking his life for a cause he doesn't really believe in. Ultimately he can't resist the challenge and begins designing expertly concealed hiding spaces - behind a painting, within a column, or inside a drainpipe - detecting possibilities invisible to the average eye. But when one of his clever hiding spaces fails horribly and the immense suffering of Jews becomes incredibly personal, he can no longer deny reality.

Written by an expert whose knowledge imbues every word, this story becomes more gripping with every life the architect tries to save.

©2013 Charles Belfoure (P)2013 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Words like 'riveting' and 'compelling' aren't strong enough to describe this remarkable novel narrated by Mark Bramhall and set in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1942." (AudioFile Magazine)

"A beautiful and elegant account of an ordinary man's unexpected and reluctant descent into heroism during the second world war." (Malcolm Gladwell)

"Belfoure writes like an up-and-coming Ken Follett... There's plenty of detail to interest architecture buffs, too." (Booklist)

Paris with a twist

I really enjoyed this book. I have listened to several audio books and read many more about Paris during the Occupation, but this is the best in a long time. Being a lover of architecture, I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of beautiful apartments and decorative details.

This book is loaded with details about the French spirit and also their fear of being thought of as collaborators. And it also showed how far the Nazis would go to find Jews hidden within collaborators homes.

It is well worth the read. And the narration is excellent.
Enjoy!

Good Read

I read a lot of WWII novels and I enjoyed this one cry much. It was a unique storyline and I liked the characters. I would recommend it.

loved it

this book was great. simple and wonderful! I really enjoyed the character development and performance.

Would Make a Great Movie

Great piece of historical fiction. Compelling, insightful, and easy to tell who was speaking in dialog, thanks to Bramhall's German and French accents. Would love to see this in film.

Surprisingly good

I thought the book was really good. Took awhile to get into it and there are some really dry spots but overall it was quite good

What An Adventure!

Wonderful, and different treatment of the Nazi occupation of Paris. Great and memorable characters. Could not stop listening. Narrator was just perfect.

a haunting tale -- I couldn't put it down

This was a masterfully written book! heartbreaking, at times horrifying, but also triumphant. The narrator is also excellent! he's so good at the accents.

Exceeded expectations!

I was hesitant on getting this originally because it's not my usual genre and I thought the summary kind of gave the book away a bit so I felt like I knew what was going to happen. However, within a few chapters I was hooked. The narration is phenomenal and the story itself was very well done. It kept me interested by figuring out how the characters mingled throughout the chapters and loved when their storyline overlapped. Overall it was a very good "read".

Absolutely loved this

I usually prefer nonfiction when it comes to war tales like Erik Larson but this was very well done. A few of the sex scenes and vulgar language could have been done without but that’s on the author. This narrator was amazing as well. Definitely recommend!

Gripping

I do gravitate toward the WWII genre, but this book was particularly suspenseful. Couldn't stop listening.