Over thirty years ago, I had what was one of the greatest experiences of my university life, when I attended a series of lectures* by Professor Richard Cobb on life in France under German occupation. During those years millions of men and women had to make horrible choices about how to live their lives, do their jobs, feed themselves and their families; Cobb's message was that those of us who had never had to confront those choices needed to be very wary before handing out either praise or blame.
This deeply humane and civilised attitude is evident on every page of Allan Massie's excellent quartet of crime novels** set in Bordeaux during the occupation. His hero, Inspector Lannes, meets political and personal depravity from both collaborationists and their enemies in the Resistance; his family is split, with one son supporting Vichy and the other escaping to London to join the Free French, and both are young men of integrity; his daughter falls in love with a quixotic patriot who goes off to fight for Hitler on the Eastern Front; and his wife turns away from him both physically and emotionally. He always tries to do what he thinks is right, but so often the choice is between the bad and the worse. The ethical complexity of such a world is a gift to the crime novelist, and Massie takes full advantage of the setting. The novels are also a loving Francophile's evocation of the France of grumpy concierges and long lunches, of Charles Trenet songs and barges on the foggy Gironde, of scruffy bistros and grand hotels. I read them avidly, all four in less than a week, and warmly recommend them.
*Published as French and Germans, Germans and French: A Personal Interpretation of France Under Two Occupations, 1914-18/1940-44
