Detective Chief Inspector Jean-Louis St-Cyr of the Surete Nationale and Detektiv Inspektor Herman Kohler of the Gestapo are back in occupied Paris on an bitterly cold February night in 1943 and are not happy to have been sent out on three crimes that have all occurred during the nightly war blackout.

In wartime Paris, there are thousands of lonely young women who have not seen their husbands or boyfriends for several years because they are in POW camps or are abroad fighting with the Allies. The German Reich as occupiers of the country are sending everything of value, including foodstuffs to the fatherland to support their own war effort and as a consequence with the very strict rationing and curfew at night it is a hand- to- mouth existence for many of these women who often have to bring up very small children as well. So quite a number of them, in order to give themselves a bit more food or a few luxuries are consorted with the enemy or even working as prostitutes and it is these wives of absent French husbands who are being raped and murdered.

So St-Cyr and Kohler have to make an exhausting investigation to carry out and check out all the difficult leads and trace all clues before the exciting conclusion. The story employs a large cast of characters which require one's full attention or some confusion may occur.

I read previously his non-series book THE HUNTING GROUND (2013), which also I thought was excellent. All of this very talented Toronto-born Canadian author's gripping historical mysteries have been based in wartime occupied France but I understand that his new one that is due out in November, BETRAYAL, is a brand new thriller offering the reader a captivating and thought-provoking story set in Northern Ireland during World War II.

I enjoyed very much TAPESTRY and I look forward to reading BETRAYAL in due course.

Strongly recommended.

Terry Halligan, England
September 2014