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The Great Swindle

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The Great Swindle

By: Pierre Lemaitre, Frank Wynne
Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
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About this listen

October 1918: the war on the Western Front is all but over. Desperate for one last chance of promotion, the ambitious Lieutenant Henri d'Aulnay Pradelle sends two scouts over the top, and secretly shoots them in the back to incite his men to heroic action once more.

And so is set in motion a series of devastating events that will inextricably bind together the fates and fortunes of Pradelle and the two soldiers who witness his crime: Albert Maillard and Édouard Péricourt.

Back in civilian life, Albert and Édouard struggle to adjust to a society whose reverence for its dead cannot quite match its resentment for those who survived. But the two soldiers conspire to enact an audacious form of revenge against the country that abandoned them to penury and despair, with a scheme to swindle the whole of France on an epic scale.

Meanwhile, believing her brother killed in action, Édouard's sister Madeleine has married Pradelle, who is running a little scam of his own...

©2013 Editions Albin-Michel - Paris (P)2015 MacLehose Press 20th Century Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction World War I France

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Critic reviews

The vast sweep of the novel and its array of extraordinary secondary characters have attracted comparisons with the works of Balzac. Moving, angry, intelligent - and compulsive (Marcel Berlins)
A big, swirling tale that itself reads like a 19th-century novel ... thick with detail, immersing the reader in its elaborately bleak world (Sarah Lyall)
This book is thick with detail, immersing the reader in its elaborately bleak world ... an irresistible story (Patricia Wall)
Exceptionally powerful examination of the aftermath of war and of the people whose lives were washed away in its wake (Nick Rennison)
Lemaitre's novel is a rare synthesis of the tragic and the comic - a masterclass in nail-biting suspense ... Frank Wynne is a superb translator who captures the rude exuberance of the original French (Edward Wilson)
Engrossing . . . one of the most pleasurable reading experiences of recent years (David Mills)
All stars
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This was an unexpected delight. beautifully written and read with great presence. possibly the most entertaining book of the year. Highly recommended.

The most entertaining book of the year

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This is the best Lemaitre book I have listened to. Very clever story with great characters and a great narrator. Brings post-war Great War France to life.

Very clever and different

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This story is riveting. I got caught up with the characters and lived in
their world until the end .
It was beautifully read .

First Class

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Intriguing adventurous word painting of two men thrown together through unbelievable circumstances. A good read.

An intricate affair

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A gripping story with unforeseen turns of plot - and at the same a moving and intelligent examination of human relationships in the aftermath of war

Very good indeed, on many levels

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This book was hard to get on with. The characters are mostly unlikeable, the prose clunky and the subject largely unedifying. It meanders to a somewhat satisfying conclusion, but it could have been so much sharper. I nearly stopped after the first hour, but as it was a book club choice, perservered. The latter parts were better than the earlier, but not much. If you enjoy farce you may like it more than I did.

Difficult to enjoy

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