While Paris (and the world) is distracted by WWII, serial killer Marcel Petiot begins murdering and dismembering at least 26 people (but possibly as many as 150). The doctor not only killed patients, but set up a fake escape network for Jews in which they were lured to his little murder factory, executed, and he kept the valuables they were attempting to flee Nazi-occupied Paris with.

The subject matter of this book is fascinating in a dark, disturbing way, which is why I am giving it four stars. While the subject matter is fascinating, there are many secrets about Petiot and the extent of his murders that he took to the grave to him after his trial and subsequent execution. Much of his story is muddied in the French Gestapo, French Resistance, and general confusion and disorder during the war.

I withheld a fifth star mostly because of the writing style of the book, which was occasionally confusing and had quite a few rough transitions. Attempting to capture fans of The Devil in the White City, the author includes some information about what was happening in Paris at the time, but it doesn't quite seem to fit; there isn't enough of it to really establish a concurrently running story like Devil in the White City does with the World's Fair and Holmes and the bits he does include never really seem to connect to anything. I wish that those passages were either developed into something more solid or omitted entirely.

Overall, it's interesting and I wanted to keep turning the pages, but it's not quite on par with books like The Devil in the White City.