An Officer and a Spy

Plot summary

Upon being promoted to run the Statistical Section, the top secret headquarters of French military intelligence, Georges Picquart begins to discover that the evidence used to convict Alfred Dreyfus of espionage, which resulted in his imprisonment for life on Devil's Island, is flimsy at best. As he investigates further, he discovers that the military and the government doctored much of the evidence. Moreover, the spy who actually passed the information Dreyfus was convicted of sending to the Germans is, in fact, still operating. Warned off the investigation by his superiors, Picquart persists, risking his career and his life to free an innocent man from unjust imprisonment and to stop a spy operating within the military who has gone unpunished.

Reception

The novel won the Walter Scott Prize (2014), and the American Library in Paris Book Award (2014).

Film

Robert Harris was inspired to write the novel by his friend Roman Polanski's longtime interest in the Dreyfus affair. Harris followed up the novel with a script of the same story, titled D, which Polanski is set to direct. It will begin production on location in Paris in July, 2016.