The Collaborators - Softcover

Hill, Reginald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0586204539 ISBN 13: 9780586204535

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 1989

Synopsis

From the bestselling author of the Dalziel and Pascoe series, a superb novel of wartime passion, loyalty – and betrayalWhen Janine Simonian was dragged roughly from her cell to face trial as a collaborator in the days of reckoning that followed the liberation of France, she refused to conceal her shaven skull from the jeering crowds that greeted her.Before the jury of former Resistance members pledged to extract vengeance on all who had connived in Nazi rule, Janine stood proudly in court – and pleaded guilty to the charges.Why did so many French men and women collaborate with the Nazi occupation forces whilst others gave their lives in resistance? Were the motives of those who betrayed their country always selfish – and those of the Resistance always noble?The Collaborators is a superb novel of conscience and betrayal that portrays the human dilemmas brought about by the Nazi occupation of France, and asks uncomfortable questions about the priorities of personal and national loyalty in time of war.

About this title

About the Author

Reginald Hill is a native of Cumbria and a former resident of Yorkshire, the setting for his novels featuring Superintendent Dalziel and DCI Pascoe. Their appearances have won him numerous awards, including a CWA Gold Dagger and the Car-tier Diamond Dagger Lifetime Achievement Award. The Dalziel and Pascoe stories have also been adapted into a hugely popular BBC TV series.

From Publishers Weekly

First published in England in 1987, this novel departs from Hill's usual mystery oeuvre ( Ruling Passion ). With thoughtfulness and insight that call to mind le Carre, Hill reconsiders an aspect of the German occupation of France during WW II that many Frenchmen would prefer to forget--the collaboration. Set primarily in Paris, the novel follows the lives of Jean-Paul and Janine Simonian, he a Jew, she a boulanger 's daughter married against her parents' wishes. Upon his release from a military hospital after France's humiliating defeat in 1940, Jean-Paul joins the Resistance. For her part, Janine worries--about her two children and the husband who has become emotionally so dark and distant. Gunther Mai, an otherwise kindly German officer in the Abwehr , befriends Janine and uses her as a source of information on her husband's activities--a relationship that works well until he falls in love with her. What Hill portrays so successfully is the conflict between social and personal responsibility. Through a wonderful range of secondary characters, he skillfully characterizes the collaborator in his various guises--from the self-serving black marketeer to the loving mother and wife. Best of all, Hill captures the collapse of morality in occupied France.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0586204539
• ISBN 13: 9780586204535
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448