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The Typewriter and the Guillotine

An American Journalist, a German Serial Killer, and Paris on the Eve of WWII

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By Mark Braude

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Price

$32.50

Price

$42.00 CAD

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Format:

  1. Hardcover $32.50 $42.00 CAD
  2. Audiobook Download (Unabridged) $31.99

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As thrilling as Agent Josephine and A Woman of No Importance, the propulsive untold story of a trailblazing female New Yorker reporter in France on the eve of WWII who begins sounding the alarm as a German serial killer stalks the Parisian streets, from award-winning author Mark Braude.

In 1922, Janet Flanner arrived in Paris with dreams of writing about “Beauty with a capital B” for The New Yorker. Then a niche publication, her employer was self-consciously apolitical, seeking only breezy reports on French art and culture. As signs of frightening extremism, economic turmoil, and widespread discontent became apparent, Flanner ignored her editor’s directives, reinventing herself, her assignment, and The New Yorker in the process.

Working tirelessly to alert American readers to the dangers of German’s chancellor and the worrying developments across the Atlantic, Flanner soon became enmeshed in the disturbing criminal case of a man who embodied all of the darkness she was being forced to confront. The child of two proud Nazis, Eugen Weidmann’s crimes were explicitly political and for Flanner, who covered Weidmann’s crimes, capture, and trial, the case served as a guiding metaphor through which to understand the tumultuous years through which she’d just passed and to prepare herself for the dangers to come.
 
Set against the epic backdrop of pre-WWII Europe, THE TYPEWRITER AND THE GUILLOTINE tracks how Weidmann’s case and the political turmoil of the period transformed Flanner from naïve writer to the hard-hitting journalist who exposed Americans to the warning signs of WWII.
 

Genre:

  • Praise for KIKI MAN RAY

    "Braude’s exuberantly entertaining biography sets out to rebalance the much-told story of Left Bank Paris, in which Kiki — model, memoirist and muse — is usually cast as a bit player. He brings that milieu to life in all its grit and energy — but also the larger sociopolitical pressures that myopic mythmaking leaves out."
    New York Times
  • "Exquisitely crafted… Sharp and succinct, Mr. Braude’s three pages on “Le Violon d’Ingres” alone are worth the price of the hardcover, but the book’s muse is the real draw… KIKI MAN RAY rescues its protagonist from the dustbin of history and advocates eloquently for the vitality and importance of the world she helped to forge."
    Wall Street Journal
  • "[A] heady romp through the galleries and nightclubs of interwar France."
    Vogue
  • PRAISE FOR INVISIBLE EMPEROR

    "A lively and insightful account.…Braude has a wonderful eye for the striking image or scene, and establishes the peculiar world of Napoleon’s Elba through vignettes by turns humorous and poignant."
    Times Literary Supplement
  • PRAISE FOR MAKING MONTE CARLO:

    "Braude’s well-researched and deftly written history whisks the reader through Monte Carlo’s colorful past."
    Washington Post

On Sale
Jan 20, 2026
Page Count
432 pages
Publisher
Grand Central Publishing
ISBN-13
9781538767115

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Mark Braude

About the Author

Mark Braude is the author of three books of nonfiction, most recently Kiki Man Ray: Art, Love, and Rivalry in 1920s Paris, a New York Times Notable Book of 2022 and a New Yorker Best Book of the Year. He has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University, a Visiting Fellow at the American Library in Paris, and an NEH Public Scholar. He has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications. His books have been translated into seven languages. He lives in Vancouver with his wife and their two daughters.

Learn more about this author