Murder on the Métro

In the years leading up to the Second World War, France was riven by political division as extremes of left and right vied for power. Annette Finley-Croswhite and Gayle K. Brunelle tell the tragic and mysterious story of Laetitia Toureaux, a young woman swept up in the violent passions of the time.

At around 6pm on a Sunday afternoon in May 1937 an attractive young woman with newly coiffed blond hair, wearing a finely tailored green suit, white hat and gloves, left a bal musette, or dancehall, in a working-class suburb of Paris near the Charente River and the Bois de Vincennes. She told a friend, Pierrette Marnef, that she was late for an appointment and headed off briskly towards a bus stop. 

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