Coco at the Ritz is a novel based on a true, though little-known event — the arrest and interrogation of Coco Chanel at the end of World War II on charges of treason to France, stemming from her relationship with a Nazi spy.
Most of the facts are lost to history, but this much is known: one morning in August 1944, two men from the French Forces of the Interior, the loose band of resistance fighters, soldiers and private citizens who took up arms in the wake of the liberation of Paris, led Chanel from her suite at the Ritz Hotel to an undisclosed location for questioning.
What transpired during her interrogation, who was present, and why she was set free, remain a mystery.
Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and author Gioia Diliberto explore Chanel’s motivations and portray the gripping battle of wits that could have been her interrogation. By turns, raw and vulnerable, steely and flawed, Coco Chanel emerges as a woman who owns her decisions, no matter the consequences.