Mamta Chaudhry

I kept waiting to be as beguiled by Sylvie as some characters in this remarkable book are. Unfortunately, the remove between us was never quite breached making me impatient with a story that required patience. Nevertheless, a beautiful if flawed novel of war and peace, of love lost and found, and - unsurprisingly - of Paris. The "haunting" is both classic ghost story and history: the rounding up of French Jews - Operation Vent Printanier - during the German occupation, reminding us in our own time how few of us can rise above indifference or the temptation to ride out the squalls of evil behind closed doors.… (altro)