A Literary ‘French Connection’

Every so often, amidst the deluge of World War II literature, some books emerge that feel like a revelation. The year 2024 proved abundant in such discoveries, and months later, these three books continue to haunt my thoughts with their vivid portraits of humanity amidst war.

Start with ‘Through Hell to Dunkirk,’ a memoir by the little-known French liaison officer Henry de la Falaise, recently republished by Stackpole Books. It’s a narrative that crackles with immediacy, written as the blitzkrieg of 1940 roared through Western Europe. De la Falaise’s account begins with his work alongside the British Expeditionary Force’s 12th Lancers Regiment, tasked with a rearguard action that felt as futile as it was heroic. Bombarded by air raids, pursued relentlessly by the enemy, and constantly grappling with hunger and fatigue, the regiment’s struggle to retreat to Dunkirk is a study in courage and despair.

De la Falaise doesn’t just recount the chaos of war; he lets us into his soul. He writes of comrades lost, friends wounded, and refugees fleeing - most memorably, an eleven-year-old Jewish girl from Belgium, braving the impossible task of scavenging food while carrying her infant brother. Her hopeful belief that reaching France would mean safety is heartbreaking in hindsight.

The memoir, untouched since its original 1943 publication, reads like a time capsule. It’s the work of a man pouring his grief and resolve onto the page before the ink had a chance to dry.

Next is ‘Strong in Will,’ published by Casemate, which shifts the lens to the personal journals of Marie-Louise Dilkes, a receptionist at the American Embassy in Paris. Her decision to remain in the city as the German forces approached offers readers a vivid, deeply human glimpse into the Paris of 1940.

Dilkes chronicles a Paris that feels almost cinematic: twilight walks along the Seine, lingering afternoons at her favourite museums. But her narrative darkens as war encroaches, rationing takes hold, and nightly curfews silence the City of Light. Her departure from Paris, forced by America’s entry into the war, is bittersweet. Like Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s ‘War Within and Without’ or Victor Klemperer’s ‘I Will Bear Witness,’ Dilkes’s account offers a rare perspective on life in an occupied city.

And then there is ‘Banquet of Beggars,’ the third in Chris Lloyd’s Detective Eddie Giral series, published by Orion. It is fiction that feels steeped in the truth of Occupied Paris. If you haven’t yet met Giral, you’re in for a treat. a disillusioned Parisian policeman navigating the treacherous waters of Occupied Paris, is as much an outsider as the city itself - hated by the Germans, distrusted by his compatriots, and haunted by his own moral compromises. In this latest outing, he is tasked with solving a murder, though the investigation becomes as much about survival as justice.

Lloyd’s genius lies in his ability to marry meticulous research with propulsive storytelling. Every page is steeped in the granular details of 1940s Paris - the stale air of rationed brasseries, the ominous whispers of collaborators, and, yes, even the weather, recreated with uncanny precision. His characters are richly drawn, his plot twists are surgical, and his humour - dry, dark and perfectly placed - offers relief without undermining the gravity of the narrative.

In Banquet of Beggars, Lloyd achieves that rare alchemy of making history feel intimate and alive, as if the Seine itself carries the weight of his tale. Lloyd’s meticulous research shines, grounding his novel in an atmosphere so tangible you can almost smell the bread queues and hear the clipped German accents. His attention to detail recalls Alan Furst’s Night Soldiers series, while Giral’s gruff wit and doggedness bring to mind Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther.

One can only hope Mr. Lloyd is hard at work on Eddie Giral’s next case. Paris, and its readers, demand it.

All three books serve as a reminder that great storytelling, much like history itself, thrives on the specifics: the fragile hopes of an eleven-year-old refugee, the muted courage of a woman in an occupied city, or the dogged determination of a detective navigating moral grey zones. Whether historical or imagined, these tales prove, once again, that the past is never really past.

(The author is a history book reviewer who is passionate about the Second World War and its myriad complexities.)