The Blood of Lorraine

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In the wake of the Dreyfus affair, the murder of two Jews in Lorraine reveals the darker side of human nature In the wake of the Vernet murders in Aix-en-Provence, magistrate Bernard Martin moves to Lorraine, France, along with his pregnant wife, Claire, who is as fervent about Republican ideals as her husband. They are not there long when an infant boy is found dead, his tiny body mutilated. The wet nurse and mother say that this was a case of “ritual sacrifice” by a “wandering tinker,” or Jew.Meanwhile his beloved Claire, now reeling form the death of her own child, seems to be falling prey to the propaganda being spewed throughout town, forcing Bernard to acknowledge the frailties of the human psyche. Fearing a vigilante mob sparked by the church, Bernard must unveil the murderers before Nancy experiences its own pogrom.From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Pope improves on her 2008 debut, Cézanne's Quarry, which also featured magistrate Bernard Martin, in this fascinating look at the rise of anti-Semitism in France after the arrest of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus for treason in 1894. Now transferred to Nancy, the capital of Alsace, Martin doesn't relish investigating a politically sensitive case--the murder of seven-month-old Marc-Antoine Thomas, whose parents claim that a Jew killed and mutilated their son--that Martin's Jewish colleague, David Singer, insists that Martin take over. When a prominent member of the Jewish community, Victor Ullmann, is later bludgeoned to death, the magistrate fears that it was a revenge killing. Martin must also deal with a devastating personal tragedy as pressure to solve the Ullmann case mounts. Pope, a historian, more than compensates for a not fully satisfying ending with a complex lead and the skill with which she makes the anti-Semitic atmosphere of the times both palpable and tragically prophetic. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistPope sets this history-mystery at that most explosive of times, France in 1894, just before the trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus on suspicion of sharing French military secrets with the Germans. Her entry point for examining the anti-Semitism of the time is one murder case and one magistrate in the town of Nancy, long a haven for French Jews. The case involves a murdered, mutilated baby. The mother and wet nurse insist that a wandering Jew murdered the infant as part of a ritual sacrifice.The magistrate is Bernard Martin, a most sympathetic character, totally devoted to the ideals of fraternity and equality. The case was first brought to a Jewish colleague of Martin’s, who believes it represents a trap. Action and tension escalate from there. Besides being an engrossing mystery, this is an excellent examination of how prejudice seeps into every area of life. --Connie Fletcher