Death In The City Of Light: The True Story of the Serial Killer Who Terrorised Wartime Paris [Kindle Edition]

In March 1944, the police and fire service were summoned by neighbours of a house on rue Le Sueur, part of a Parisian suburb, from which thick black smoke had been emanating for 5 days. The smell was nauseating, described as burnt rubber or burnt roast of poor quality. Further enquiry revealed the property to be an unoccupied house belonging to Dr Marcel Petiot, a respectable family physician with a flourishing practice. The firefighters entered the building and traced the smell to a small basement room. On opening the iron door, they discovered dismembered human bodies and bones. Two coal stoves were present, one roaring furiously, containing charred human remains. The room bore the stench of roasted, putrescent human flesh. Chief commissaire Massu was summoned to the scene locating rooms with works of art and antique furniture. A courtyard led to a small triangular room with thick walls. No furniture or windows were within but high on the walls were iron hooks. A viewing lens was concealed under wallpaper looking into the room. An outside former stable house contained a pit full of quicklime and decomposing bodies.

This scene of carnage is the starting point of a long and perplexing investigation into the circumstances that had been witnessed. David King, using archived records of the investigative processes and subsequent events, has written an account of the chief suspect Marcel Petiot. A work of fact not fiction. King records in extreme detail the lives of Petiot's purported victims, their families, his acquaintances and also backtracking on his past life leading to the present. These are set against a Paris occupied for four years by Germans. Amongst the Nazi atrocities in Paris, Germany and elsewhere, it appears that Petoit may have been undertaking his own operation, according to the investigators.He lured desperate, wealthy, ( mainly Jews), in the hope of escaping the oppressive Nazis with the promise of passage to Argentina, taking huge fees and other items as payment. The findings in rue Le Suere suggested that few, if any, actually made the trip.

David King chronicles the efforts to obtain the evidence needed for a case against Petiot and a trial. Whilst doing this he portrays Parisian life both low and high, with tales of malnourishment amongst the French people with the champagne lifestyles of the elite (high-ranking German officers, their girls and collaborators, gangsters) with scattered chapters on the society literati (Sartre, Camus, Picasso etc). Whilst adding to the timbre of Paris of this time, they do not fit in comfortably with the narrative flow of the Petiot story. The exhaustive descriptions of people and places of relevance would have benefitted from their pictorial representation, if available ( I had to make notes from my Kindle edition).
This is an in-depth well-researched book with over 200 references in the bibliography. The author provides evidence that Petiot was a mass-murderer (denied by the accused). An intelligent, articulate, cultured, witty,ingenious, ruthless,ill-tempered psychopath, of little doubt. There are questions the reader needs to decide. Was Petiot working for the French resistance, the Gestapo or himself? Did he get a fair hearing? What state of mind was he in? King ends the book with his own perspective of events, in part fact, part speculation and heresay, but interesting nonetheless. Infuriatingly, he relates the story of Raphael K (from a small book King later came across) who said he had been through the whole Petiot selection process and had escaped from improbable circumstances. We, as readers, never find out how, nor what happened to him. Despite the quibbles this is a fine and fascinating document of true events surrounding this slice of history.
P.S. Since this review, the subsequent comments confirm my thought that the thoroughness of the author would not have left any loop-holes. In view of this I would up my grading to 5 stars.

This enthralling book begins with the investigation of a revolting smell emanating from a house in Paris in 1944. Although the city, under occupation, has already seen endless suffering the gruesome discoveries within the house shocked even wartime Paris. Inside there were body parts in the basement, a lime pit full of bodies and a soundproofed room which resembles a torture chamber. The house belonged to a doctor - Marcel Petiot - who briefly put in an appearance to claim he worked for the resistance and was quickly allowed to disappear by police on duty. Commissaire Massu therefore lost his first battle in his attempt to solve the crime of the century.

Dr Marcel Petiot was a physician who lived with his wife of seventeen years, Georgette, and his fifteen year old son Gerard. The author outlines Petiot's early life, which shows many worrying signs of what was to come - early sadistic behaviour and an interest in pornography, bed wetting, stealing, a loner, expelled from school and yet very intelligent. He almost had a CV announcing he would be a future serial killer by todays definitions and his behaviour was compounded by WWI which left him institutionalised for three years and not discharged until 1919. However, his ambition was remarkable and he started his medical career and stood as mayor in his career. Even at this early stage though, there were accusations of stealing, lovers who disappeared or died in mysterious circumstances.

The book goes on to look at the evidence and the victims found in Petiot's house, his eventual arrest and then his trial, which started on March 18th 1948. It was expected to be, "the most sensational criminal trial in modern French history" and actors, film stars and ladies of high society flocked to the courtroom. The evidence for the prosecution weighed a ton, including so many suitcases left behind by those that had passed through Petiot's house, that the courtroom had the appearance of a station waiting room. Petiot was accused of the murder of twenty seven people, the only ones from the body parts that could be identified and who included Jews fleeing occupied Paris, gangsters and prostitues. During the trial, Petiot seemed thoroughly at ease, verbally sparring with the prosection and making the crowd laugh, signing autographs and seeming to enjoy himself hugely. Petiot himself argued that he was a member of the resistance, who had been held by the Gestapo and had only killed Germans and collaborators.

This is not only a great true crime book, but an interesting view of wartime Paris. Petiot's crimes were aided by the time, where people disappeared daily and many were living under assumed identities. When human life was declared sacred during the trial, those in the court openly laughed. It was a time when life was indeed cheap and there were those who took advantage of others desperation. This is an extremely interesting read and well researched. Lastly, I read the kindle editon of this book and illustrations were included at the very end.

This book is a fairly pedestrian affair, setting out the main features of the case, the investigation and the trial. Despite having access for the first time to the classified French files, it is unclear what new insights King brings to the story. And despite the focus on Petiot, he remains somewhat an enigma as there are still so many holes to his biography and very little concerning his motives, other than broad speculation. The narrative also suffers from some odd asides. For example, the material on Sartre, Camus, Picasso and other celebrity artists, whilst interesting, is totally redundant to the story. If the idea was to give an insight into Paris during the occupation, it would have been much more useful to provide accounts of everyday lives, or given the claims in the trial, the organisation and activities of the resistance. We are given neither. In many ways the book raises more questions than it answers, and some of the answers that are given are unsatisfactory. For example, at the end of the book, the author claims to know how the victims were killed (a fact never established during the investigation or trial), drawing on an obscure book that recounts the tale of a survivor. The problem is, whilst the hypothesis is plausible, the scenario cannot be survived! Overall, an interesting topic dealt with in a mundane, often dry, fashion.