An Officer and a Spy: A novel Author: Robert Harris | Language: English | ISBN:
B00EBRU05I | Format: EPUB
An Officer and a Spy: A novel Description
Robert Harris returns to the thrilling historical fiction he has so brilliantly made his own. This is the story of the infamous Dreyfus affair told as a chillingly dark, hard-edged novel of conspiracy and espionage.
Paris in 1895. Alfred Dreyfus, a young Jewish officer, has just been convicted of treason, sentenced to life imprisonment at Devil’s Island, and stripped of his rank in front of a baying crowd of twenty-thousand. Among the witnesses to his humiliation is Georges Picquart, the ambitious, intellectual, recently promoted head of the counterespionage agency that “proved” Dreyfus had passed secrets to the Germans. At first, Picquart firmly believes in Dreyfus’s guilt. But it is not long after Dreyfus is delivered to his desolate prison that Picquart stumbles on information that leads him to suspect that there is still a spy at large in the French military. As evidence of the most malignant deceit mounts and spirals inexorably toward the uppermost levels of government, Picquart is compelled to question not only the case against Dreyfus but also his most deeply held beliefs about his country, and about himself.
Bringing to life the scandal that mesmerized the world at the turn of the twentieth century, Robert Harris tells a tale of uncanny timeliness––a witch hunt, secret tribunals, out-of-control intelligence agencies, the fate of a whistle-blower--richly dramatized with the singular storytelling mastery that has marked all of his internationally best-selling novels.
- File Size: 1784 KB
- Print Length: 500 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0091944562
- Publisher: Knopf (January 28, 2014)
- Sold by: Random House LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00EBRU05I
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #525 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #3
in Books > Literature & Fiction > British > Historical - #3
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense - #4
in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers > Historical
- #3
in Books > Literature & Fiction > British > Historical - #3
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense - #4
in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers > Historical
I overheard Harris being interviewed on Radio 4, talking about this 'novel' - except to call it a novel implies that it must be fiction. As Harris and the interviewer concurred, if someone invented the Dreyfus affair as a fiction, the writer would be castigated for having stretched credulity too far.
In fact, as Harris points out, all this is documented, and researched, and is a deeply shameful part of France's history. Except that what is even more worrying and shameful is that large scale cover-ups, the concept of obeying orders without question, systems protecting their own despite betraying principles of justice, and inherent racism are not endemic flaws peculiar to late nineteenth and early twentieth century France
The infamous Dreyfus affair involved a Jewish army officer, Alfred Dreyfus, who was convicted of spying for Germany, in 1895. There was certainly a spy within the French army, a man who was violent, untrustworthy, and with gambling debts and a mistress as well as a wife to support. But that man was not Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus was a loyal and conscientious, if not particularly likeable, officer. The question which must be asked is - was Dreyfus not particularly likeable, or was he not particularly likeable because he was Jewish - anti-Semitism was deeply entrenched in society. A culture of what we have learned to define as Institutional Racism was certainly present - but not just within Institutions
Dreyfus was convicted because as a Jew he was the automatic one to suspect, even though, right from the start, the evidence was circumstantial, and largely turning on evidence from a graphologist.
To call this a spy thriller is to diminish its quality.it is of course a spy thriller and a fascinating detective story but it is much more than that.I believe that it is Harris best and one of the few outstanding dramatic action historical novels of all times
It is the narrative of the Grand Drama,political,military and human that took place in France between the late 19th and the early 20th Centuries,the Dreyfus affair.
All main characters of the novel are real historical persons.The wrongly accused as a German spy Major Dreyfus a French Officer and an Alsatian Jew, a model of stoicism,a man of professional and family values,portrayed superbly by the Author as History delivered him to posterity,a man of schoolmasterish appearance and enormous inner strength who suffered his own Calvary because of the prejudice that haunts his Race, before his exoneration .
The principal character, Colonel Picquart,an Alsatian himself narrates the story in the first person.He is the new Head of the Statistical Section which is the front for the French Army's counterespionage team.He knew the Dreyfus affair from the beginning but did not initially challenged it.He is the subject of a superbly drawn psychological and physical portrait by the Author,he is so vividly described by Harris as he really was that one feels that knows him.
Picquart ,while no Saint and with the limitations of his profession and his social class,is a man of integrity,intelligence and dogged determination as well as a crafty bureaucratic fighter that knows the system well.
An Officer and a Spy: A novel Preview
Link
Please Wait...