Representing the Maginot Line in Formula Fiction, 1934–1939: Pierre Nord’s Double Crime Sur La Ligne Maginot

Through a microhistory of the crime novel Double Crime sur la Ligne Maginot (1936) and its cinematic adaptation (1937), this article contests the view that pre–World War II French mass culture was characterized by a “Maginot mentality”—the view that fortification lulled the French into a false sense of security, hid the reality of war, and blinded them to the Nazi threat. On the contrary, Double Crime promoted the fear that the fortifications could not protect France from an invasion via Belgium or from espionage. To show how, the article brings together the ambiguous conventions of the murder-mystery genre with military history and the social history of the army. It shows that although Nord set out primarily to write a successful crime novel, the nature of the genre allowed unresolved disputes within the army concerning the nature of command and of individual heroism in a democratizing army to shape the narrative and sow doubts about the security of the fortifications. Tensions were further complicated by the requirement of the murder mystery for a cast of characters with something to hide, a role played by officers of regional minority background.