This internationally bestselling novel tells the gripping saga of a secretly Jewish bartender who has no choice but to keep working at the Ritz Hotel during the height of the Nazi occupation in Paris.
Paris, 1940. The Nazis have descended on Paris and the Occupation has begun. Businesses across the city have shuttered, but the prestigious Ritz Hotel remains open, its dazzling lights still burning bright behind its windows on the Place Vendôme. Though fewer Parisians venture outdoors and German soldiers roam the streets, the siren call of the Ritz Bar still lures its remaining glamorous patrons with the promise of the perfect cocktail. And when it becomes the favorite spot of the occupying forces, its barman, Frank Meier, is forced to adapt to a new clientele. But Frank has a secret: he is Jewish.
Mounting tensions rise as the war progresses, but Frank refuses to leave his post behind the bar. Unbeknownst to the Nazi officers he serves night after night, Frank forms precarious alliances with unlikely allies in order to save other Jewish families in the city and keep his loved ones alive.
Inspired by a true story, with the highest of stakes and a brilliant protagonist, The Barman of the Ritz is a heady cocktail of history and fiction set in one of Paris’s chicest places, diving deep into the impossible choices of an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances.
