‘Village of Scoundrels’ tale of resistance to evil

In a remote mountain village in southern France, the shadow of World War II is creeping closer. Local guesthouses are full of young Jews who have fled Nazi roundups from German territory and occupied northern France.

When a French police officer, Perdant, arrives in the middle of winter, all seems quiet.

But his appearance sets off a series of alarms: from German refugee Henni and her housemates, who are about to celebrate Hanukkah; from Jean-Paul, a Jewish medical student who is blocked from school and now forges identity cards; and from Philippe, a people smuggler who fled to join the resistance after the Germans occupied his hometown in Normandy.

Perdant suspects the villagers are harboring Jews. But when he attempts to investigate, he is thwarted at every turn by locals who sing loud songs to distract him, or claim they “don’t know what a Jew looks like.”

At the heart of “Village of Scoundrels” is a question: How can individuals act with integrity in a time of evil?

Two characters explore that question: French teenager Celeste, who overcomes her fear to help the resistance. And 10-year-old Jules, who draws Perdant’s unwelcome attention, but diverts, distracts and directly challenges him to rethink his role in a corrupt system.

While some of the book’s large cast of characters, especially the adults, tend to blur together, Preus convincingly creates a portrait of an entire community that developed strategies of nonviolent resistance as war and genocide swept across France.