A.W. Hammond is a former lawyer. He also publishes as Alex Hammond as has a Ned Kelly award nomination for his novel Blood Witness. His latest novel sees him traveling back and exploring a particular crime in a blood soaked era in The Paris Collaborator...
It’s Paris. August 1944.
Auguste Duchene is renowned for his ability to find missing people. He doesn’t see race or nationality, only people who need his help.
But Duchene is about to find himself in an impossible situation; as the Allies close in on Paris Duchene must find a missing priest and a German soldier.
The set up is deceptively simple; Duchene must help the Resistance to find a missing priest with a cache of guns, whilst also help the Nazis find a missing soldier in a war full of missing people.
If he fails in either mission his daughter will be killed. If either side finds out about the other, Duchene's own life is forfeit.
Into this intriguing setting Hammond crafts a story about loyalty in a time of extremes.
I was first drawn to The Paris Collaborator as a flight of pure escapism. Rightly or wrongly stories of war time heroism can offer a means of simplifying the world. In Duchene though I found something more than simply a white hat on his way to riding off into the sunset.
The Paris Collaborator pits polarised ideologies, both equally willing to brutalise and kill and both equally assured of their righteousness. From the distance of history we might say there was only one way, but as we walk the streets of a war torn city with Duchene we are shown the difficulty of individual clarity.
This polarisation is no more apparent than in the breakdown of civility. Even the appearance of acknowledging the other side is cause for scorn. Duchene is constantly vexed that his daughter Mariane does not care that he disapproves. She loves her German fiance and believes that this is enough to survive the war.
And so we come to the heart of The Paris Collaborator, because even though we do not find ourselves fighting on the streets of Sydney we are equally thrown into ideological battles that seem to give no quarter.
As Duchene races to complete his mission the Allies approach Paris and its ultimate liberation. The question becomes as much will Duchene prevail, as how will his actions be viewed in the aftermath.
Hammond has drawn an immensely satisfying historical novel with beautifully realised scenes at the ground level. Drawing on archives and photographs of the time, the writing makes you feel as if you are walking the cobbled streets.
In mixing genres we also find ourselves shifting between war, crime and espionage wrought in sepia, noir tones. I could almost see Bogart playing Duchene (only he’d destroy the accent).
The Paris Collaborator is a tremendous read with some important ideas. Before you get online and destroy someone anonymously you might want to think about how pitted ideologies actually serve us as a community. As this novel shows us when we see only stereotypes everyday kindness is destroyed and that tends only to help the powerful at all our expense.
