Number 12 Rue Sainte-Catherine

Though unexceptional in every way, Klaus Barbie, a mid-level Gestapo chief, ruled Lyon, France, like a medieval tyrant from 1942-44. Crowds parted to let him pass; a table was permanently reserved for him at Le Lapin Blanc, Lyon’ s raciest nightclub; and pretty young women slipped him notes inscribed with their phone numbers. But his glory days represented only a thin slice of his life. What prepared him for his role as the so-called Butcher of Lyon, and what became of him after the war ended? In an attempt to answer these and other questions, this collection of nine wide-ranging and skillfully written stories presents Barbie in a variety of guises, from that of a vulnerable young boy, to a preening young man on the make, to an enfeebled old man forced to confront his crimes forty years after the fact. Though wars and their excesses flare up and die down, evil is always with us, promising a god-like dominion over others that seduces those who are weakest. This book is a reminder of that.

Roberta Hartling Gates has been published in Confrontation, Fourth Genre, the Beloit Fiction Journal and elsewhere. She was awarded the Dogwood Literary Prize in Fiction in 2021 and has an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in a suburb of Chicago with her husband and is currently at work on a novel set in Vichy France.