An Officer and a Spy
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Average rating4.1
January 1895. On a freezing morning in the heart of Paris, an army officer, Georges Picquart, witnesses a convicted spy, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, being publicly humiliated in front of twenty thousand spectators baying 'Death to the Jew!' The officer is rewarded with promotion: Picquart is made the French army's youngest colonel and put in command of 'the Statistical Section' - the shadowy intelligence unit that tracked down Dreyfus. The spy, meanwhile, is given a punishment of medieval cruelty: Dreyfus is shipped off to a lifetime of solitary confinement on Devil's Island - unable to speak to anyone, not even his guards, his case seems closed forever. But gradually Picquart comes to believe there is something rotten at the heart of the Statistical Section. When he discovers another German spy operating on French soil, his superiors are oddly reluctant to pursue it. Despite official warnings, Picquart persists, and soon the officer and the spy are in the same predicament. Narrated by Picquart, An Officer and a Spy is a compelling recreation of a scandal that became the most famous miscarriage of justice in history. Compelling, too, are the echoes for our modern world: an intelligence agency gone rogue, justice corrupted in the name of national security, a newspaper witch-hunt of a persecuted minority, and the age-old instinct of those in power to cover-up their crimes.
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This was an enjoyable historical spy novel about the Dreyfus affair in France at the end of the 19th century, told from the perspective of Georges Piquart, an army Major promoted to the head of the Army's intelligence unit. He discovers evidence that Dreyfus has been wrongly convicted of treason and spends the rest of the book battling to get that evidence accepted, at the cost of great personal hardship. At times his quest appears to be impossible, especially because the public is violently against anyone who dares to suggest that Dreyfus is innocent. However, glimmers of hope appear over and over again.
The book seems well researched. Occasionally the narrative drags a little, but the story is so interesting that that didn't deter me from finishing.
Outstanding historical fiction
This is the first book I've read by Harris and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The story of Dreyfus has always intrigued me and I was eager to read this historical fiction retelling. It is hard and yet sadly easy to imagine this gross miscarriage of justice taking place as a government scrambles to find a scapegoat and a rallying point. The book was compelling, it kept my interest, it made me angry on Dreyfus' and his supporters' behalf even though I knew that they would be exonerated in the end. I highly recommend checking e cling this book out! And I will be look I my into Harris's backlist!
Good fictionalization of an amazing story. Set mainly in Paris, the author reveals a startling story of the framing of Dreyfus and the staunch defense those who perpetuated the travesty. Its yet more proof of how institutions, in this case the French Army, circle the wagons to defend themselves.
