Little Parachute

From a master of World War II espionage, a thrilling tale of an adoptive mother and a lost boy fighting to survive in occupied France   The moment Angélique arrives in Paris, she is taken prisoner by the SS. In a lonely little room, she is put in a chair with leather straps and a bloodstained seat and ordered to tell her captors everything she knows about the resistance. But Angélique knows nothing. She cares only for poor Martin, the boy who has been unable to speak since the bombs first fell during the Blitzkrieg. He has a secret—and she will protect it until her dying breath.   Though Angélique loves him like her own, Martin is not her son. He came to her from the sky, brought by a parachute dropped by the British, and if the Germans learn his true identity, it will mean certain death for both of them.  The Little Parachute is a testament to the genius of J. Robert Janes, author of the legendary St.-Cyr and Kohler mysteries, who understands the tragedies of World War II like no one else.

Praise for J. Robert Janes “Cleverly structured . . . Janes does his usual solid job.” —Publishers Weekly on Carnival   “The arch chemistry between the two competitive sleuths, the smattering of German and French, and the measured unfolding of the well-appointed plot all give St-Cyr and Kohler's 15th case a faint flavor of Poirot.” —Kirkus Reviews on Carnival   “[Janes] weaves a subtle, character-driven plot, stylishly written and long on twists.” —Kirkus Reviews on The Sleeper   “Absorbing . . . Janes continues to address how ‘the everyday common crimes of murder, arson and the like’ were investigated during the Nazi occupation of France. . . . As in the best historical whodunits, the effective insertion of minor details . . . goes a long way to bringing the reader into the story.” —Publishers Weekly on Clandestine   “An enthralling, character-propelled new police procedural.” —Kirkus Reviews on Bellringer

J. Robert Janes (b. 1935) is a mystery author best known for writing historical thrillers. Born in Toronto, he holds degrees in mining and geology, and worked as an engineer, university professor, and textbook author started he began writing fiction. He began his career as a novelist by writing young adult books, starting with The Odd-Lot Boys and the Tree-Fort War (1976). He wrote his last young adult novel, Murder in the Market, in 1985, by which time he had begun writing for adults, starting with the four-novel Richard Hagen series.   In 1992, Janes published Mayhem, the first in the long-running St-Cyr and Kohler series, for which he is best known. These police procedurals set in Nazi-occupied France have been praised for the author’s attention to historical detail, as well as their swift-moving plots. The sixteenth in the series, Clandestine, was published in 2012.