An Officer and a Spy

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The acclaimed author of Conclave and Dictator brings you-are-there immediacy to the Dreyfus affair in this “superb historical thriller” (The Wall Street Journal) crackling with intrigue and espionage.

“Harris has, with this novel, taken le Carré’s place as the master of making . . . the details of painstaking intelligence work into drama.” —The Daily Beast

Winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and the American Library in Paris Book Award

Paris, 1890s. Alfred Dreyfus has been convicted of treason, sentenced to life imprisonment on a far-off island, and publicly stripped of his rank. Among the witnesses to his humiliation is Georges Picquart, an ambitious military officer who believes in Dreyfus's guilt as staunchly as any member of the public.

But when he is promoted to head of the French counter-espionage agency, Picquart finds evidence that a spy still remains at large in the military—indicating that Dreyfus is innocent. As evidence of the most malignant deceit mounts and spirals inexorably toward the uppermost levels of government, Picquart is compelled to question not only the case against Dreyfus but also his most deeply held beliefs about his country, and about himself.