Title:

Three Hours in Paris

Author:

Cara Black

Category:

Mystery / Thriller

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

March 13, 2025

hree Hours in Paris reminded me a lot of Fredrick Forsythe's classic The Day of the Jackal. Both books feature assassins bent on killing major political figures in Paris (so the reader knows from the start that the assassination attempts fail), both books have smart policemen desperately pursuing them. However, in The Day of the Jackal the assassin is the villain and the French policeman is the hero, while in Three Days in Paris, the assassin is an American woman who is an excellent shot, and the pursuing policeman is a veteran Nazi detective who is reporting directly to the Fuhrer. Three Days in Paris is a real page turner, the chapters are short (no more than seven pages each, and many considerably shorter) and alternate between telling the reader about the desperate flight of Kate Rees and remorseless pursuit of Gunter Hoffman. You will stay up a bit later than intended to read just one (or two) more chapters.

Kate lost her baby daughter and beloved husband when a German bombing attack kills them. She desires to avenge them, and since the British have noticed that she is an excellent marksman (markswoman) - Kate grew up in rural Oregon with five brothers in an outdoor environment and learned to hunt at an early age - she gets enlisted into the schemes of the intelligence officer Stepney. The plan is audacious. The British know Hitler is planning a triumphant visit to newly conquorored Paris. Kate Rees is parachuted into France, where she is to meet with French resistance figures who will guide her to Paris. What Stepney doesn't tell Kate is that British Intelligence is worried that their spy network has been compromised. Nevertheless, Kate gets to Paris and gets Hitler in her sight. But bad luck prevails, and now she is fleeing (this happens right at the beginning of the story, the plot is all about Kate's attempt to escape).

Hitler is furious at how close he came to death. He abruptly returns to Berlin although he had just arrived. (I didn't learn until the note at the end of the novel explained that the title of the book, Three Hours in Paris, referred to the amount of time that Hitler spent in Paris before quickly leaving again. Kate is in Paris for many more than three hours as the harrowing hunt keeps closing in on her tail. The German policeman Gunter Hoffman is given 36 hours to capture the assassin. He is to report directly to the Fuhrer. Black tries to humanize Gunter - we learn he longs to be with his loving wife and sweet young daughter back in Munich, but it doesn't work - there are no good Nazis and it is impossible to have any warm feelings for the Germans.

I felt that Black stacked the deck too much in the favor of Gunter. I resented how his investigation never missed a clue, always inferred the correct thing, every witness cooperated, and every witnessed provided accurate details. A verbal description by a witness results in an artist sketching such an accurate image of Kate that everyone Gunter shows it to, recognizes her. Couldn't Gunter have encountered some difficulty? I was especially exasperated by Gunter's fortuitous "look out the window at a crowded Paris roundabout and his gaze is miraculously drawn to a figure standing near a flower box". Oh, come on! I could be a police detective if circumstances were always so fortunate.

Nevertheless, the story is quite suspenseful. The resourceful Kate is surrounded by traitors and collaborators, unsure of who to trust, but always aware of how dangerous her situation is. It turns out the extraction plan is not well thought out, and there isn't a lot of alternatives, with soldiers everywhere and curfews and patrols.