Murder in Dreyfus Days

About the Book

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.

About the Author

Personal: Born NYC 4 Oct 1922; widower, daughter, 3 grandsons Two years residents in France; wide travel in W. Europe Teaching: Hunter College CUNY & Grad School CUNY 1951-1984 Presently Prof Emeritus of History Military Record: Served to Captain Artillery AUS 1943-1946 Five Battle campaign stars in ETO Higher Education: Princeton Univ AB cum laude 1943 Columbia Univ MA 1948; PhD 1953 Univ of Paris (Sorbonne) 1950-1 Professional experience (non-teaching): Consultant for WBGH series “Western Tradition” 1987 and for University Presses, e.g. Yale, Princeton, Cornell, et al. Panelist for National Endowment for the Humanities 1977-1985 And Rockefeller Foundation (Humanities) 1974-1979 Associate Editor, Reviews in European History 1974-1979 Publications: Author, France Since the Revolution (Macmillan, Free Press 1963) Co-author, Modern France: Problems of the Third and Fourth Republics (Princeton Univ Press 1951); Nationalism: Essays in Honor of Louis Snyder (Greenwood Press 1981) Author of articles and reviews in numerous journals and encyclopedias