An Officer and a Spy is the novelized story of the infamous Dreyfus Affair, one of the black marks on the modern history of France and the French Army.
I often hear friends say: I only read non-fiction because fiction is just a made up story that has little to no significance other than entertainment. I beg to differ. I’m a history fan and read a fair amount of it, but I’ve found that often history books trap you in heavy details, dismissing the personal aspects of the story. Novelized histories, on the other hand, wrap the reader in personalities that explore the inner workings of the historical tableau. Yes, that is true even in the historical romance genre, with a glance into how people lived and died and loved and lost. Historical romance novelists collect a trove of reference material. As an example of historical novels that make you “live in the time,” is A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. I often say, unless you have read that book, you will never understand how the French revolution affected French society and the people who lived through it.
A Soldier and a Spy is another novel that takes you inside and makes you live through the intrigues and government of the Third French Republic of the 1890s. Yes, it is very much a history lesson, but one with a human face.
Perhaps you are familiar with the injustice done to Captain Alfred Dreyfus. For those who don’t yet know the story, in the 1890s, Dreyfus was charged and convicted with being a spy. He was stripped of his rank in the most public of places. His disgrace complete, he was sent to the far away Devil’s Island, a tiny and isolated place where he was kept under horrible conditions for years.
This is where the novel unfolds. The French Army Lieutenant Colonel George Picquart. discovers that there be another spy in the army. In his quest to identify the second spy, he uncovers mountains of evidence and deceit that rises to the pinnacle of both the army and the government.
The novel turns and twists as the truth is found and washed away and found again, always doubtful, always less than the full truth.
In this novel, author Robert Harris leads the reader through dust clouds of discovery to the startling ending.
If you enjoy spy stories, you’ll be thrilled and astonished at the reality of the complications of proof and truth and the consequences of both.
An Officer and a Spy is a great read that will keep you up at night and linger in your dreams. Besides the quest for truth, the novel is a valuable, personalized history lesson that echoes in today’s headlines.
If it isn’t in your city library, you can easily find very reasonably priced used copies online.
