PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Straight after graduating in Spanish and French, Chris Lloyd hopped on a bus from Cardiff to Catalonia and stayed there for over twenty years, falling in love with the people, the country, the language and Barcelona Football Club, probably in that order. Besides Catalonia, he's also lived in the Basque Country and Madrid, teaching English, travel writing for Rough Guides and translating. He now lives in South Wales, where he works as a Catalan and Spanish translator, and returns to Catalonia as often as he can.
Monumentally impressive . . . I'm blown away. A truly wonderful book. If somebody'd given it to me and told me it was the latest Robert Harris, I wouldn't have been surprised. Eddie Giral is a wonderful creation. * Alis Hawkins * A terrific read - put me in mind of Alan Furst and Philip Kerr ... Gripping and well-paced. The period atmosphere is excellent. * Mark Ellis * Wartime Paris rises from the page with its seedy bars, gang-ridden train yards, lonely apartments, and across everything falls the terrible shadow of the Great War ... A fantastic novel. * Katherine Stansfield * The best kind of crime novel: gripping, thought-provoking and moving. In Detective Eddie Giral, Chris Lloyd has created a flawed hero not just for occupied Paris, but for our own times, too. * Katherine Stansfield * Such a powerful and morally nuanced crime novel ... Both a gripping murder mystery and a vivid recreation of Paris under German Occupation. * Andrew Taylor * Excellent . . . In Eddie Giral, Lloyd has created a character reminiscent of Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther, oozing with attitude and a conflicted morality that powers a complex, polished plot. Historical crime at its finest. * Vaseem Khan, author of Midnight at Malabar House * Lloyd's Second World War Paris is rougher than Alan Furst's, and Eddie Giral, his French detective, is way edgier than Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther . . . Ranks alongside both for its convincingly cloying atmosphere of a city subjugated to a foreign power, a plot that reaches across war-torn Europe and into the rifts in the Nazi factions, and a hero who tries to be a good man in a bad world. Powerful stuff. * The Times * Terrific * The Sunday Times * Lloyd's Second World War Paris is rougher than Alan Furst's, and Eddie Giral, his French detective, is way edgier than Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther. Powerful Stuff * Sunday Times Crime Club * A police story with a difference, sepia-painted to match the time and circumstances, with a convincing background and atmosphere, skilfully drawn to encompass the fates of the lead characters as if you were there by their side. Well-written and carefully researched, it is one to stay with you long after you have finished reading * Adrian Magson, SHOTS Magazine * A thoughtful, haunting thriller * Mick Herron *
