Clandestine

A hijacked delivery vehicle draws St-Cyr and Kohler back to the killing fields of World War I

The last time Jean-Louis St-Cyr visited the ruins of this ancient abbey, during one of the bloodiest campaigns of the Great War, a sniper nearly killed him. Three decades later, death has brought him here again. Ever since the German occupation of France, the chief inspector has worked alongside German detective inspector Hermann Kohler, solving crimes too common to pique the Gestapo’s interest. Now, during the fall of 1943, the war is going badly for the Third Reich, but conflicts continue to plague these two unlikely allies.

A bank-owned cargo van is parked near the crumbling monastery, its contents ransacked, its passengers murdered. The killers took small bills but left behind a bounty in smuggled champagne, cheese, and coffee. Even more confounding is the expensive pair of high heels left behind. Were the thieves from the Resistance, or from the underworld? Who is the mysterious woman who was wearing those shoes? St-Cyr and Kohler have a feeling that the answers are hiding in the cold French rain.

J. Robert Janes (b. 1935) is a mystery author best known for writing historical thrillers. Born in Toronto, he holds degrees in mining and geology, and worked as an engineer, university professor, and textbook author before he started writing fiction. He began his career as a novelist by writing young adult books, starting with The Odd-Lot Boys and the Tree-Fort War (1976). He wrote his last young adult novel, Murder in the Market, in 1985, by which time he had begun writing for adults, starting with the four-novel Richard Hagen series. In 1992, Janes published Mayhem, the first in the long-running St-Cyr and Kohler series for which he is best known. These police procedurals set in Nazi-occupied France have been praised for the author’s attention to historical detail, as well as their swift-moving plots. The thirteenth in the series, Bellringer, was published in 2012.