All Human Wisdom

The second volume of Pierre Lemaitre's enthralling, award-winning between-the-wars trilogy.

In 1927, the high society of Paris gather at the funeral of the wealthy banker, Marcel Péricourt. Lacking any knowledge of banking, Madeleine, his daughter, is poised to take over his financial empire. More unfortunately still, Madeleine's seven-year-old son, Paul, tumbles from a second-floor window of the Péricourt mansion on the day of his grandfather's funeral and suffers life-changing injuries. Paul’s accident sets off a chain of events that will reduce Madeleine to destitution and ruin in a matter of months.
Using all her reserves of ingenuity, resourcefulness, and a burning desire for retribution, Madeleine sets about rebuilding her life. She will be helped by an ex-Communist fixer, a Polish nurse who doesn't speak a word of French, a brainless petty criminal with a talent for sabotage, an exiled German Jewish chemist, a very expensive forger, an opera singer with a handy flair for theatrics, and her own son with ideas for a creative new business to take Paris by storm.
A brilliant, imaginative, free-falling caper through between-the-wars Paris, and a portrait of Europe on the edge of disaster.