The Frenchman

A gripping debut thriller based on the real-life experiences of a former French intelligence operative.

A gripping debut thriller based on the real-life experiences of a former French intelligence operative.

Alec De Payns is an operative in the secretive Y Division of the DGSE, France’s famed foreign intelligence service. He’s the agent at the sharp end of clandestine missions, responsible for eliminating terror threats and disrupting illegal nuclear and biological weapons programs. The element the missions have in common is danger—danger to de Payns, to his team and to those who stand in his way. But increasingly it’s not just the enemies of France that are being damaged by de Payns’ actions. His marriage is under strain, and at the back of his mind lurks the fear that haunts every operative with a family—what if they come after my children?

When a routine mission in Palermo to disrupt a terrorist organisation goes fatally wrong, Alec is forced to confront the possibility that they may have been betrayed by a fellow agent. And now he’s been tasked to investigate a secretive biological weapons facility in Pakistan. Alec must find out how they’re producing a weaponised bacteria capable of killing millions, and what they plan to do with it. But with a traitor in the ranks, it’s not just Alec in the firing line. Soon he’ll be forced to confront his worst fear—and the potential destruction of Paris itself.

This is fiction, but based on the experiences of a real French spy. The knowledge and tradecraft that lie behind Jack Beaumont’s taut plotting and brilliant eye for detail make The Frenchman all the more plausible, and all the more frightening.