If you're a debut novelist, you could do a lot worse than have Booklist call you "an up and coming Ken Follett" or find out that Malcolm Gladwell described your first effort as "A beautiful and elegant account of an ordinary man's unexpected and reluctant descent into heroism during the second world war."

So good on you, Charles Belfoure, because that's exactly what happened with the publication this week of "The Paris Architect" - about titular designer Lucien Bernard who, in 1942, accepts a lucrative but dangerous job building a discovery-proof safe house for a wealthy Jew hiding from Nazis. If the plan goes horribly awry, though, how responsible is Bernard for his client's safety? And at what personal danger?

The author appears Sunday in Mystic's Bank Square Books to sign copies of "The Paris Architect" - meaning you'll be one of the first folks you know climbing on the Belfoure bandwagon.

- RICK KOSTER

Charles Belfoure, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Sunday, Bank Square Books, 53 West Main St., Mystic; free; (860) 536-3795.