Death In The City Of Light: The True Story of the Serial Killer Who Terrorised Wartime Paris

(Paperback)

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DEATH IN THE CITY OF LIGHT is the true story of the hunt for Marcel Petiot, a respectable physician by day, who turned out to be a brutal serial killer by night in Nazi-occupied Paris.

Petiot was charged with 27 grisly murders, though his victims - many of whom were Jews seeking to escape the Nazis - may have numbered in excess of 100, for Petiot was not only skilled at evading detection and capture, he was also expert at dismembering his victims beyond any chance of identification.

The investigation was led by Commissaire Georges-Victor Massu of the Homicide Squad, who became entangled with a cast of captivating characters through the shadowy world of Gestapo, gangsters, nightclub owners, Resistance fighters, pimps, prostitutes, spies and various nefarious figures of the Parisian underground.

Reviews

As compelling as a thriller and hauntingly grim. - Sunday Times

Expertly written and completely absorbing. - Kirkus

True-crime at its best. - Booklist

This fascinating...account combines a police procedural with a vivid historical portrait of culture and law enforcement in Nazi-occupied France. - Publishers Weekly

A new masterpiece of true-crime writing. - Salon.com

Author Bio

David King is the author of Vienna, 1814; How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War and Peace at the Congress of Vienna and Finding Atlantis: A True Story of Genius, Madness and an Extraordinary Quest for a Lost World. He is a Fulbright scholar with a master's degree from Cambridge University and lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with his wife and children.