Book Log 2013 #25: The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure

In occupied Paris, an architect who is living on the margins stumbles into a lucrative, but troubling offer: modify apartments and houses so they can be used to hide Jews and a local construction magnate will get him commissions to build factories for the Nazis. The architect is reluctant to participate - getting caught would mean certain death, and he doesn't particularly care for Jews - but the money and potential fame of the larger projects brings him aboard.

This causes certain disruptions - his wife considers him a collaborator (as do many other Parisians), and he gets involved in a triangle with his mistress and a high-ranking Gestapo agent - but as he continues to build his small and large projects he begins to understand why the man he's working for is hiding Jews, and how the risks serve a higher purpose.

The book isn't perfect - the characters' inner monologues are little too expositional at times, and there's a subplot involving the Resistance that doesn't do much for me - but it's an interesting book, thanks to the author's architectural background, which is used to great effect.