I had a pretty good idea I would love this novel and I surely did! As the title suggests, the story is largely set in Paris. This is Paris during the Nazi occupation, a very dark period in the history of that magnificent city, a time when her residents were challenged just to survive, when many did far more than that.
The main character is an American, Claire Harris, who arrives in France from New York in the middle of May 1940, foolishly not realizing that the German Army is rapidly advancing on Paris. To make matters worse, she has very little money and speaks no French.
Why is she doing this? Well, in New York she played the role of the aristocratic wife of a brutish nouveau riche businessman. I say played the role because Claire totally misrepresented herself to her husband—she is not at all the person she claimed to be when they got involved. She takes off for Paris a few hours before she expects him to discover the truth about her. Why Paris? Because she had a brief fling with a man named Laurent who encouraged her to join him there.
After a series of harrowing misadventures that only foreshadow what lies ahead for her, Claire arrives at Laurent’s apartment. When he threatens to send her back to New York the next day, she walks out on him. By the grace of whatever divine power looks over such people, Claire finds a place to live and a job at a flower shop called La Vie en Fleurs.
Like all civilians living in Paris under the Occupation, Claire is subject to identity checks by members of the German Army. And in her work as a florist she is often out making deliveries at the hotels where the German officers and command staff have their rooms. She desperately needs identity papers—and those she carried with her across the Atlantic were stolen before she arrived. Because the risk is very great, she takes an even greater risk, reluctantly agreeing to gather intelligence for the Resistance in exchange for papers that make her the American widow of a Frenchman already killed in battle.
Claire’s multiplicity of roles challenge her to hone every skill she used to ply her way into New York society in her former life. Sheene writes in the third person from Claire’s point of view; the reader discovers only when Claire does which people can be trusted. Dates in chapter headings orient the reader to the passage of time, as do frequent references to the changing seasons and the privations experienced by the Parisians during the very harsh winters. As the plot develops, so does Claire’s sense of justice and of her place in the larger historical narrative that is unfolding around her. The reader also learns more about Claire’s personal history and the events that brought her to New York in the first place.
From start to finish, The Last Time I Saw Paris literally seethes with suspense. This sensation only heightens as the story unfolds. I found the final chapters to be so intense that I had to abandon my usual practice of reading just before going to sleep at night. I was so anxious about what was happening and what was going to happen that I couldn’t sleep!
The Last Time I Saw Paris is Lynn Sheene’s first venture as a novelist. Let’s hope we see more of a comparable quality from her in the near future!
(Berkley Books, 2011)
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