Robert Harris has, in An Officer and a Spy, brought vividly alive one of the most infamous periods in French history, known as The Dreyfus Affair. It is January 1895. Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a wealthy Jewish officer in the French Army, is convicted of being a spy and publicly humiliated in a carefully orchestrated public event, then incarcerated in barbaric conditions on a remote island.
An Officer and a Spy is told from the viewpoint of Colonel George Picquart, who appointment as the Statistical Section (the Army spooks) he becomes the youngest colonel.The promotion places him tantalizingly in the military’s inner sanctum with personal access to the Minister. But it brings him into head-on clash with a close-knit department that disapproves of his methods and envious of his position.
When Picquart uncovers a German spy operating within the Army he is surprised, then