Amazon.com (ISBN 0743474481, Paperback)

The Bloody Streets of Paris is a classic detective story set against the Nazi occupation of Paris. Newly discharged from a WWII prisoner of war camp, Nestor Burma finds himself unraveling a convoluted mystery surrounding the death of an associate. The fast-paced, tightly plotted story is suspenseful and gripping. But the genius in The Bloody Streets of Paris is its depiction of wartime Paris. The Nazi occupation flips the Parisian life on its head. Their familiar surroundings are suddenly ominous and fraught with danger. It's with this looming presence as a backdrop that Burma attempts to solve the mystery. French illustrator Jacques Tardi adapted The Bloody Streets of Paris to graphic novel form. Born at the end of World War II, Tardi heard stories of both world wars from his grandparents. His grandparents' stories greatly marked the illustrator as a child. In an interview for a French periodical he explained, "What interests me [about war] is daily life: how do people continue from one day to next under such conditions?" Tardi's black and white illustrations brilliantly evoke the gritty urban atmosphere of forties' Paris.--Leigh Gable