Chris Lloyd

Chris Lloyd is a British author of historical crime fiction whose Eddie Giral series, set in German-occupied Paris during the Second World War, has won major awards and established him as one of the finest writers in the genre. Lloyd won the Historical Writers' Association Gold Crown Award for best historical novel with The Unwanted Dead, the first book in his series featuring Eddie Giral, a French police detective navigating the moral nightmare of working as a cop under Nazi occupation. Paris Requiem was named a Sunday Times Best Historical Fiction Book of 2023, and Banquet of Beggars was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger Award. The series follows Eddie Giral through occupied Paris as he attempts to solve crimes while serving masters he despises. The moral complexity is the series' great strength — Eddie must collaborate with the occupiers to do his job while trying to retain his humanity and protect the innocent. Each novel combines gripping crime plotting with a richly atmospheric portrait of Paris under occupation — the fear, the corruption, the small acts of resistance, and the terrible compromises required to survive. Lloyd writes with the plotting skill of a crime novelist and the atmospheric detail of a literary historical novelist. His Paris feels real — the streets, the restaurants, the checkpoints, and the constant undercurrent of danger. The audiobook editions of Lloyd's novels are tense and atmospheric. His books and audiobooks are essential for fans of historical crime fiction, wartime novels, and stories about moral complexity in impossible circumstances.