TEN DAYS IN AUGUST

1944, and the last ten days of the German occupation of Paris, the insurrection staged by the Resistance- more of a moral achievement, and the activities of a few deadly, dedicated men and women provides a fully developed drama. Reboussin is one of the leaders; so is Bourbon, the arrogant military adviser; Gaudin, who has not been home enought to know that his wife Suzanne has taken a German lover Klaus; Patrice Vallois, and Danielle, whom he loves and whom he asks to shoot the German informer who had once been her lover. Patrice, afraid that an insurrection may lead to communist control, backs it when Danielle is arrested by the Germans (betrayed by Suzanne) and Danielle is on the list of exchange prisoners when a truce is reached. Even so, the position of the French is uneasy- and a man is sent through to the American lines to plead for a march on Paris. Danielle is the victim of a physically humiliating interrogation prefacing worse violations to come-but with the liberation of Paris, she too is free.... Passions, patriotic and otherwise, create their ferment and keep this aroused. There's no time for knitting.... A first novel.