Keynes in 1919
John Maynard Keynes, a representative of the British Treasury, attended the peace conference in Paris, which began in January 1919. It ran until June, when Germany begrudgingly signed the treaty with the Allies, officially ending the war. Keynes was an outspoken critic of the terms of the agreement. He left the conference in protest in May 1919 and a few months later published his The Economic Consequences of the Peace. This predicted that the harsh terms imposed on Germany would result in serious economic and political repercussions on Europe and the world.
Caricature of Keynes by D Low, 1934
…and now to the fiction
Following the armistice, Mary Kiten, a volunteer nurse in northern France, is ready to return home to England when she receives a surprise telegram requesting that she report to Paris where her uncle is a security chief at the Peace Conference. Soon after her arrival in Paris, her uncle is murdered. Determined to stay in Paris and find her uncle’s killer, Mary takes up a position as an assistant to Keynes. The investigation takes her into the back streets of Paris and the criminal underworld.
What she discovers will threaten the foundations of the Peace Conference.
While some of the incidents are based upon actual episodes of Keynes’s time in Paris plus real occurrences and intrigue at the conference, the central plot and theme of the novel are imagined.
#Thriller #PeaceConference #WW1 #Paris #Keynes