On Pain of Death: A Sumach Mystery

Trapped in Paris during the German Occupation, Canadian Sorbonne student Juliette Benoit finds her life in tatters. She has had to abandon her Canadian identity for fear of arrest, her lover has disappeared without a trace, and a good Jewish friend has been taken away to Drancy, a German transit camp, leaving her little sister behind in Juliette's care. Only one step ahead of the Gestapo, Juliette obtains a new identity and joins an escape network of the French Resistance to bring the young girl out of France to safety. Meanwhile, in the village of St-Léger, Gabrielle Aubin's husband is wrongfully executed for the murder of a German soldier. Hoping to find the true killer, Gabrielle joins the Resistance.

The two women's lives become inalterably intertwined when they find each other while hiding out in a nunnery in Beaune. When they flee to the hills to work with a Resistance group in the Morvan forest, they discover they share a common link to the past, a secret that eventually leads to a shocking revelation.

With consummate skill, Rehner keeps the reader wholly in her grip as she interweaves the stories of the two women through harrowing plot twists. Born of Rehner's intimate knowledge of the period and setting, On Pain of Death is redolent with rich historical detail. She vividly brings to life the harsh realities of France under the German Occupation, as well as the courageous achievements of those who fought in the lines of the Resistance.