House of Thieves by Charles Belfoure

House of Thieves : A Novel by Charles Belfoure --- 376 pages

The new novel by the author of The Paris Architect shows equal aplomb in this Gilded Age tale, a literary mashup of The Age of Innocence and The Gangs of New York.

John Cross, his wife Helen and their three children, George, Julia and Charlie, are a blue-blooded old New York family of impeccable antecedents. John is an architect; Helen a society woman; George has just graduated from Harvard, Julia is about to make her debut under the aegis of the Cross's fabulously wealthy cousin, Caroline Astor. Charlie is an energetic schoolboy.

But beneath that veneer of rigid Knickerbocker respectability the Crosses are hiding very different, secret lives, as they discover a talent for larceny and the thrill of taking risks.

Click HERE for the review in Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE for the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE for the review in the New York Journal of Books.  

The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure

The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure - 371 pages

The Paris Architect  is a gripping story about a pair who worked architectural marvels in Occupied Paris to protect French Jews.  The novel follows architect Lucien Bernard and industrialist Auguste Manet.  To the eyes of most Parisians and the Germans, Bernard and Manet appear to be collaborationists helping design factories for the German war effort.  Behind the scenes, Bernard designs cleverly disguised hiding spaces for Manet's Jewish friends enabling them to elude the Germans.

What I loved most about this book was the "cat and mouse game" Bernard and Manet played with the Germans to cleverly hide the Jews.