Despite its schlocky title this isn't a negligible book, nor to my mind is it 'true crime'; in fact, I shelved it with my history books. What glimpses Maeder gives us of everyday life in occupied Paris and of the occasional impossibility in determining whether an individual was resisting or collaborating with the Nazis reveal a good deal.

There are a fair few questions about Petiot's murders, the victims, and Petiot himself that remain unanswered, so Maeder's account is in a sense confined and no doubt because of that can occasionally seem simply a series of descriptions of the victims and their encounters with the doctor. (A list in the back of characters and their roles is very helpful.) But again, there are glimpses of much more: the person who decided not to accept Petiot's 'help' because of his dirty hands, the villagers up in arms against/on behalf of Mayor Petiot, the family and acquaintances of Petiot who might have known early on of his murders.

But what makes the book not only solidly informative but delightful is Petiot's trial. I knew that I'd most likely skim the last 100 pages, the ones given over to the trial and including chunks of the transcript, because I always do resort to skimming that sort of thing. Not a bit of it. Farce, chaos, wittiness, unbelievable chutzpah, shouting, assault (Petiot actually threw exhibits at the clerk), boredom (naps were taken), loopy conspiracy theory as summation, uncontrolled crowds, confusion, autograph-hunting. At some point, it seems, everyone in the court seemed to recognise the absurdity of much of the trial and even the judges and lawyers found it difficult not to join in the laughter of the crowds. Absorbing and sometimes hilarious, and I'm grinning as I sit here remembering it.

The Unspeak­able Crimes of Dr. Petiot by Thomas Maeder is a non-fiction crime book tak­ing place in France dur­ing World War II.

The Unspeak­able Crimes of Dr. Petiot by Thomas Maeder is an enter­tain­ing and inter­est­ing book, well writ­ten and fac­tual. Dr. Petiot was a bril­liant psy­chopath who besides a med­ical degree, can also add mayor to his resume.

The time of the crimes which Dr. Petiot is accused of actu­ally makes the story much more intrigu­ing. The time: France is occu­pied by Nazi Ger­man and Dr. Petiot claims he killed only Nazi sym­pa­thiz­ers and French trai­tors. The French author­i­ties, try­ing not to seem unpa­tri­otic by arrest­ing the good doc­tor, took their time arrest­ing him, allow­ing him much free­dom until his story starts to fall apart.

Mr. Maeder spends time allow­ing the reader to under­stand the daily life in occu­pied Paris. The sense of uncer­tainty and occu­pa­tion cer­tainly lends cred­i­bil­ity to author­i­ties dif­fi­culty in assess­ing whether Petiot was resist­ing the Nazis or an insane ser­ial murder.

The sec­ond half of the book con­cerns the trial of Dr. Petiot. The author incor­po­rate much of the trial’s tran­script, para­graphs which in many books I sim­ply skim over, how­ever Petiot’s unbe­liev­able reper­toire with the lawyers and wit­nesses makes an amus­ing read to what I could only describe is out­ra­geous chutz­pah, gall and either extreme stu­pid­ity or courage.

The lack of deco­rum in trial, inves­ti­ga­tion and, of course, crimes makes this book very enjoyable.

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I'm a fan of True Crime when it is well done .... and Thomas Maeder weaves the facts of Docteur Petiot's life and crimes in a fluid narrative that sketches his flawed and unremorseful character thoroughly. We are left with no doubt that this man is without a conscience and his remarkable crimes and equally remarkable elusion of justice during and post-Nazi occupied France makes for a really good read. ( )