The Great Swindle
by Pierre Lemaitre
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Pub Date Nov 10 2015 | Archive Date Oct 27 2015
Hachette Australia | Quercus
Description
This title has been listed for readers in Australia & New Zealand. If you are in the UK, US or other territories please search for your edition, if listed.
The Prix-Goncourt winning masterpiece by the writer who brought you Alex, Irene and Camille.
October 1918. The war on the Western Front is all butover for most soldiers - except the ambitious Lieutenant Henri d'Aulnay Pradelle. Desperate for one last chance of promotion, Pradelle sends two scouts over the top, and secretly shoots them in the back to incite his men to heroicaction once more.
When Albert Maillard realises how the two soldiers must have died, Pradelle is ready to go to any lengths to silence him. Pushed into a shell hole and buried alive, Albert is left to face a horrific death -or he is until another soldier, Édouard Péricourt digs him out in the nick of time, loosing half his face to a piece of flying shrapnel for his troubles.
So the fates and fortunes of this unlikely pair are bound together. Back in civilian life, both struggle to adjust to a society whose reverence for its dead cannot quite match its resentment for those who survived. But Albert and Édouard conspire to enact an audacious form of revenge against the country that abandoned them - first to the trenches and then to penury and despair - with a scheme to swindle the whole of France on an epic scale.
Meanwhile, believing her brother killed in action, Édouard's sister Madeleine has married Henri d'Aulnay Pradelle, who is running a little scam of his own...
The Prix-Goncourt winning masterpiece by the writer who brought you Alex, Irene and Camille.
October 1918. The war on the Western Front is all butover for most soldiers - except the ambitious Lieutenant Henri d'Aulnay Pradelle. Desperate for one last chance of promotion, Pradelle sends two scouts over the top, and secretly shoots them in the back to incite his men to heroicaction once more.
When Albert Maillard realises how the two soldiers must have died, Pradelle is ready to go to any lengths to silence him. Pushed into a shell hole and buried alive, Albert is left to face a horrific death -or he is until another soldier, Édouard Péricourt digs him out in the nick of time, loosing half his face to a piece of flying shrapnel for his troubles.
So the fates and fortunes of this unlikely pair are bound together. Back in civilian life, both struggle to adjust to a society whose reverence for its dead cannot quite match its resentment for those who survived. But Albert and Édouard conspire to enact an audacious form of revenge against the country that abandoned them - first to the trenches and then to penury and despair - with a scheme to swindle the whole of France on an epic scale.
Meanwhile, believing her brother killed in action, Édouard's sister Madeleine has married Henri d'Aulnay Pradelle, who is running a little scam of his own...
Advance Praise
A superb novel, from beginning to end! Huffington Post
But Camille is a survivor. To enumerate just what he has survived would be to spoil the overall effect of this trilogy, which has a complex architecture of cause and effect, sin and retribution all its own. Trust Lemaitre: he knows what he is doing. Sydney Morning Herald on CAMILLE
But Camille is a survivor. To enumerate just what he has survived would be to spoil the overall effect of this trilogy, which has a complex architecture of cause and effect, sin and retribution all its own. Trust Lemaitre: he knows what he is doing. Sydney Morning Herald on CAMILLE
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9780857053251 |
| PRICE | A$29.99 (AUD) |
