Description
In the final days of World War I, an ambitious officer’s desperate plan to spur an attack sets off a chain of violence that follows three men into the uncertain aftermath of the war. As Albert Maillard and the artist Édouard Péricourt struggle to rebuild their lives—one carrying guilt, the other bearing a permanent disfigurement—they discover that society’s gratitude can be as hollow as it is loud, and that survival may demand moral compromise. Meanwhile, the officer at the center of the original betrayal continues to manipulate the dead and the living for his own ends, entangling love, ambition, and deception across shifting loyalties. With Pierre Lemaitre’s sharp, darkly humane storytelling and prize-winning psychological insight, this novel explores themes of trauma, complicity, and the uneasy line between heroism and self-interest—offering a sweeping, emotionally devastating portrait of how war reshapes everything it touches.
Available Editions
paperback
MacLehose Press
Published Sep 24, 2015
459 pages
ISBN: 9781623659073
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Details
First Published
2013
Language
eng
Translation
From: fra
Content Warnings
Content and trigger warnings for The Great Swindle by Pierre Lemaitre.