ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks to my publisher, Tegan Morrison, whose passion and insight helped to bring shape to the roughly hewn. To Kate Goldsworthy for her diligent editorial advice and for finding a way to reattach the missing fingers. To Jo Hunt for her striking cover design. And to the entire team at Echo for their work to bring this book to publication. I am also grateful to my agent Fiona Inglis for her astute guidance and counsel.

Thank you to Ben Chessell for early reading and feedback and also for collaborating with me on many hours of narrative speculation and practice alongside Miles Browne, Rani Kellock and Patrick O’Shea. Thank you too to Jason Badower for being a ready ally in the war of art.

Numerous historical sources were used to research this book. I am indebted to two works in particular, Ronald Rosbottom’s When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940–1944, (London: John Murray, 2015) and Douglas Boyd’s Voices from the Dark Years: The Truth About Occupied France 1940–1945, (London: The History Press, 2015). I also greatly benefited from the cultural and linguistic advice of Pierre Proske and from eleventh hour WW2 fact-checking by Mark Angeli – any mistakes are my own.

My family have stood beside me throughout this writer’s journey, always with encouragement and optimism. Thank you to my sister Claire and my parents, Carol-Anne and Terence, to whom this book is dedicated.

Finally, as always, I am humbled and amazed by my wife, Berni – thank you for your inspiration, advice and unfaltering support. And to my daughters, Francesca and Genevieve, who are a constant revelation.