A Quiet Little Place on Rue de Lille – A.W. Hartoin

Edited in November 2021, this wonderful novel is the fifth in the Stella Bled series.

Paris 1940

The Reich is moving in and Stella Bled Lawrence can’t get out.

Stella has proved adept at the double agent game, too adept as it turns out. The British want her to stay where she is, even though she’s about to be trapped, and worse, the Nazis want to expand her work into [sic] a distressing direction.

When two Nazi agents go rogue, Stella is at the right place at the wrong time. She ends up on the worst mission possible and her Nazi handler Villemain demands success or else. 

Stella thinks she can use this new mission to get herself and her poodle, Bijou, out of Paris. It isn’t the best place to be between food shortages, roaming packs of abandoned dogs, and desperate people with the Wehrmacht marching ever closer.

One problem leads to another and Stella’s assigned to work on the Reich’s plan for theft on a grand scale with sidelines into documenting Jewish art and apartments. Everyone wants something and Stella thinks she has nothing left to give until she realizes her wretched assignments might be used to help the people she cares about instead of hurting them. It’s a huge gamble, but she’s willing to take it.

Once she’s on the job, her expertise in art gets noticed and delivers an opportunity that the British never thought they’d have. The ultimate sacrifice is always on the table and Stella will have to make a devastating choice. People won’t survive. The question is…will Stella?

A Quiet Little Place on Rue de Lille – A.W. Hartoin