The Blood of Lorraine: A Novel - Hardcover

Starred Review. Pope improves on her 2008 debut, Cezanne'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...Pope, a historian, gives us a complex lead and with great skill makes the anti-Semitic atmosphere of the times both palpable and tragically prophetic. "

In the wake of the Vernet murders in Aix-en-Provence, magistrateBernard Martin moves to the town of Nancy in Lorraine, France,along with his pregnant wife Clarie, who is as fervent about Republican ideals as her husband. They are not in Nancy longwhen an infant boy is found dead, his tiny body mutilated. Thewet nurse and mother say that this was a case of “ritual sacrifice”by a “wandering tinker,” or Jew.

Yet as Bernard delves deeper into the different personalitiessurrounding the case, he struggles to reconcile his Republicanbeliefs with the subtle nuances of Nancy’s Jewish Diaspora, allwhile balancing the racial tensions and politics within the courthouse. Meanwhile his beloved Clarie, now reeling from the deathof her own child, seems to be falling prey to the propaganda being spewed throughout town, forcing Bernard to acknowledge thefrailties of the human psyche. Fearing a vigilante mob sparkedby the church, Bernard must unveil the murderers before Nancyexperiences her own pogrom.