Murder in Dreyfus Days (Hardcover)

In 1990 Paris during the Dreyfus Affair, Senator Henri de Longchamps was murdered in his fashionable apartment. A gambling, high-living man, the Senator was a staunch anti-Dreyfusard, vocal in his anti-semitic, anti-republican, pro-Army, pro-Church views. Mired in debt from his racetrack and cabaret flings, he had spent his wife's dowry, pawned her jewelry, borrowed from loan sharks, and sought funds from his aristocratic friends for whom he had rendered services in his senatorial capacity. De Longchamps' downstairs neighbors were teenage Chantal Duval, her brother Charles, and his friend Marc Breton. They were instrumental in helping Inspector Richard and his police team in uncovering evidence leading to the murderer's capture. Among the suspects were: 1.)The Senator's widow and her lover Pierre Bresson, a political adversary from the Chamber of Deputies; 2.)The Senator's mistress Annie Lamourette and her brother Edouard who were angry at the Senator's threat to abandon the pregnant woman; 3.)Underworld money-lender Bozo and his cohorts who were frustrated by the Senator's failure to pay his IOU's; 4.)The Senator's aristocratic companions at the races, clubs, and cabarets who were upset by the financial demands of the Senator and by the fear of scandal.