Description
Book Synopsis In 1927, the great and the good of Paris gather at the funeral of the wealthy banker, Marcel Péricourt. His daughter, Madeleine, is poised to take over his financial empire (although, unfortunately, she knows next to nothing about banking). More unfortunately still, when Madeleine's seven-year-old son, Paul, tumbles from a second floor window of the Péricourt mansion on the day of his grandfather's funeral, and suffers life-changing injuries, his fall sets off a chain of events that will reduce Madeleine to destitution and ruin in a matter of months.
Using all her reserves of ingenuity, resourcefulness, and a burning desire for retribution, Madeleine sets about rebuilding her life. She will be helped by an ex-Communist fixer, a Polish nurse who doesn't speak a word of French, a brainless petty criminal with a talent for sabotage, an exiled German Jewish chemist, a very expensive forger, an opera singer with a handy flair for theatrics, and her own
Trade Review
An epic inhabited by flamboyant characters and imbued with an all-consuming drama * Figaro *
Literature with conviction; a furious talent * L'Obs *
Confirms the genius of a great novelist and storyteller * Express *
Terrific . . . Easily the most purely entertaining novel I have read so far this year -- David Mills * The Sunday Times *
A perfectly orchestrated comédie humaine * Journal du Dimanche *
Lemaitre is always readable and his caustic wit shines through -- Antonia Senior * The Times *
Pierre Lemaitre: unleashed * Libération *
