Robert Harris’s An Officer and a Spy is part courtroom and spy thriller, part detective story. While written as fiction, the events around which the story revolves are historical, and Harris seamlessly weaves his own interpretation of the figures and events with accurate and detailed history. The tale follows the events of the scandal that rocked France in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century:  that of the false accusation and the wrongful imprisonment of a Jewish captain in the French army, Alfred Dreyfus. 

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While the first half of the book is characterized by a slow pace, the second half of the narrative is gripping, well-paced, and intense. The author’s research is extensive, and he fills his work with vivid, insightful details, not just of the case but of life in Paris at the turn of the century. France was still reeling from the loss in the Franco-Prussian War, and nationalism and antisemitism had a strong grip on the country. The characters are finely drawn, and the protagonist of the story, Georges Picquart, comes to brilliant life on the pages. Flawed and human, Picquart—a player in Dreyfus’s original conviction—becomes the driving force behind the search for justice, putting his reputation, his career, and his own freedom on the line.

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The story is a political, military, and social drama that drives at the heart of the issues that unite and divide a nation. An Officer and a Spy is a novel rich in detail that explores the complexity of loyalty and prejudice, justice and truth. 

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Highly recommended for fans of courtroom dramas and thrillers based on factual historical events