While Paris Slept

Good people coping with an impossible situation are at the heart of Druart’s uneven debut. In occupied Paris in 1944, 21-year-old Jean-Luc works on a railway line serving a housing complex for Jews who will soon be sent to concentration camps. After he is hurt while attempting to sabotage the tracks, he is sent to a German-run hospital, where he meets 18-year-old Parisian nursing assistant Charlotte. A month later, with Jean-Luc back at the station, Jewish couple Sarah and David Laffitte are herded onto the train at Jean-Luc’s station, and Sarah begs Jean-Luc to hold onto their newborn baby. Nine years later, Jean-Luc and Charlotte are living in Santa Cruz, Calif., with the Laffittes’ son, Sam, when Sarah finds them, placing Jean-Luc in legal jeopardy. The action shifts gears smoothly between 1944 and 1953, as Druart explores each character’s point of view, some more successfully than others, with Sam’s perspective being the least convincing. The dialogue can be stilted, the characters implausibly saintly, and the plot turns on an unlikely legal decision, but the author succeeds in keeping things moving, particularly in the action-packed first half of the novel. Despite the ham-handed execution, the ethical questions raised by the narrative suggests this may do well with book clubs. Agent: Sheila Crowley, Curtis Brown. (Feb.)