The sensational true story of the serial killer who stalked the streets of Nazi-occupied Paris.
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.“You won't read many better true crime books.”
As compelling as a thriller and hauntingly grim. - Sunday Times
Expertly written and completely absorbing. - KirkusTrue-crime at its best. - BooklistThis fascinating...account combines a police procedural with a vivid historical portrait of culture and law enforcement in Nazi-occupied France. - Publishers WeeklyA new masterpiece of true-crime writing. - Salon.comDavid 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.
THE MOST AMAZING TRUE STORY SINCE AGENT ZIGZAG OCCUPIED PARIS, 1944. A swastika crowns the Eiffel Tower. Nazis march through the streets. And in the dark heart of the city, a madman is at work . . . At a chic Right Bank address, a horrific pile of dismembered bodies is discovered. The property's owner, well-to-do Dr Petiot, immediately becomes the prime suspect, but he has vanished without a trace. As the police delve into the doctor's past, a disturbing history of violence and corruption is uncovered. It seems like a cut-and-dried case, but the investigation soon takes a surprising turn. Is Petiot a sadistic serial killer or a hero of the Resistance? Who are his victims? In this fascinating true account of a case that gripped wartime Paris, David King draws extensively on new sources to paint a chilling portrait of a murderer whose crimes devastated a city already in the grip of evil.
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.
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