Free The Bookseller by Mark Pryor

to survive and was liberated from Dachau in 1945. He was adopted by a French colonel and his wife and raised in a suburb of Paris.” Which explained why Hugo had never detected a foreign accent. “But then more shitty luck,” Tom went on. “When Max was twelve, in May of 1950, his adoptive father and mother were killed in a car accident while the family was on vacation in Brittany. Max was the only one to survive.”
    Hugo shook his head. So much about the old man he hadn't known. “Go on. I'm still curious why you guys have a file on him.”
    Tom chuckled. “Not technically our file, but we're coming to the interesting part. In 1963 Max attended the marriage of lawyer Serge Klarsfeld to his wife, Beate. Those names ring a bell?”
    â€œYes, but I can't place them.”
    â€œTwo of France's most famous Nazi-hunters.”
    â€œAnd the reason that file exists,” said Hugo.
    â€œRight. Moving on. Max spent the '60s with the Klarsfelds chasingNazis, including those responsible for wiping out his family. According to this, French authorities suspected that Max helped the Klarsfelds abduct former Gestapo chief Kurt Lischka in 1971. No proof, although when the couple was arrested for the kidnap, Max led the campaign to free them from jail. That happened pretty quickly, a lot of people joined the campaign, and they went back to work once they were released, Max helping the couple with more Nazi captures, including Klaus Barbie and Jean Leguay.”
    â€œNice work,” Hugo said.
    â€œYeah, until Leguay was let go without facing trial. This says Max lost heart after that.”
    â€œWho was Leguay?” Hugo asked.
    â€œA high-ranking police official in the Vichy government, and one of the most senior collaborators with the Nazis during their World War II occupation of France. A second set of charges was filed against him in 1986, but he was let go before trial. Again.”
    â€œAmazing,” Hugo said. “I had no idea.”
    â€œThis Max guy is a friend?” Tom asked. “He in trouble?”
    â€œYeah. Most definitely.”
    â€œAnything else I can do to help?”
    â€œNot right now. But I'll let you know if that changes.”
    They hung up, and Hugo sat with his elbows on his desk, staring into his now-cold coffee.
    Rarely did a human being surprise him. Twenty-plus years in law enforcement saw to that, and with his behavioral training and experience in the field he usually found himself able to predict most people's odd behavior, or spot someone with a colorful history. But not this time. What stories the old man must have. And Hugo found himself pleased, somehow, that in a manner of speaking they were in the same line of work: catching bad guys. He'd failed his friend, let him be kidnapped, and that was reason enough to track Max down. But now the old man's compelling history added to Hugo's already fierce determination to find his friend.
    Not to mention, of course, Hugo owed him a pair of cowboy boots.

 
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    That night, Hugo walked along the left bank of the Seine. It was almost eight o'clock and the green metal boxes attached to the stone walls were closed and locked tight, the sellers all gone. The air sat heavy and cold around him as he walked, and once he slipped on a patch of black ice on the sidewalk. He'd already paid a visit to Max's home, getting there by taxi an hour after talking to Tom. No one was there, either in Max's apartment or in any of the other four in the building. He'd brought his tools and could have picked the lock, but there were too many people still around, it was too early for that kind of clandestine activity. Reluctantly he'd left the place, knowing he'd return with a plan, a definite way to get through the front door. Now, he avoided Max's stall by cutting down the narrow Rue de Nevers. It made no sense, but he didn't feel ready to see it again. He felt as if it were a crime scene and, by returning to it