The Statement

Brian Moore

This was one of the Rev's recommendations a few months ago. I've always had a weakness for stories which go beneath the surface of the moral choices which faced Europeans in the occupied countries in 1940.

The eponymous statement of Brian Moore's novel reads:

"COMMITTEE FOR JUSTICE FOR THE JEWISH VICTIMS OF DOMBEY: This man is Pierre Brossard, condemned to death in absentia by French courts in 1944 ... and further charged with a crime against humanity in the murder of fourteen Jews at Dombey. After forty-four years of delays, legal prevarications, and the complicity of the Catholic Church in hiding Brossard from justice, the dead are now avenged. This case is closed."

But this document is found not beside the body of Pierre Brossard but amongst the papers of his would-be killer after a botched assassination attempt. Brossard is still alive and in France and on the run forty years after the end of the war.

It's only the assistance he receives from like-minded high ranking government and church officials which makes Brossard's fugitive existance possible. Yes he has friends, but he has enemies too. Not only Jewish groups, but also younger, less sympathetic church officials and a judicial system increasingly embarrassed at its failure to nail an alleged Vichy war criminal. Brossard's friends and enemies and their individual stories are neatly stitched into the plot.

As the Rev said, it's a well put together story and zips along very pleasingly.