An Officer and a Spy

What Part did I play in his ruin? A new historical thriller from Robert Harris.

Paris. 1895. On a freezing January morning, the Jewish army officer, Alfred Dreyfus, is stripped of his rank in front of a baying crowd of 20,000, and deported for life to Devils Island.

Among those watching his humiliation is a high-flying intelligence officer, the clever and resourceful Georges Picquart, whose dangerous love affairs leave him wide open to blackmail.

A few months later, Picquart discovers the Germans still have a spy operating in France. He mounts a sophisticated surveillance operation to trap the traitor. But the results are far more alarming than he ever expected, opening up a trail of corruption and deceit that leads him all the way to the highest ranks of the French army and government.

Now, in a vividly-written secret memoir kept under lock and key for more than 100 years, Picquart brings to life the Paris of the 1890s and tells the true story of a scandal that mesmerised the world.