{"product_id":"1541182","title":"The Great Swindle by Pierre Lemaitre","description":"'The year is 1918, the war on the Western Front all but over. An ambitious officer, Lieutenant Henry D'Aulnay-Pradelle, sends two soldiers over the top and then surreptitiously shoots them in the back to incite his men to attack the German lines. When another of D'Aulnay-Pradelle's soldiers, Albert Maillard, reaches the bodies and discovers how they died, the lieutenant shoves him into a shell hole to silence him. Albert is rescued by fellow soldier, the artist Edouard Péricourt, who takes a bullet in the face. The war ends and both men recover, but Edouard is permanently disfigured, and fakes his death to prevent his family from seeing him as a cripple. In gratitude for Edouard's rescue, Albert becomes the injured man's companion and caregiver. Finding that the postwar gratitude for the soldiers' service is nothing more than lip-service to an empty idea, the two men scramble to survive, ultimately devising a scam to take money for never-to-be-built war memorials from small towns. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Pradelle has married Edouard's sister Madeline and is running a scam of his own that involves the exhumation of war victims. In this sorrowful, heart-searching novel, the interwoven lives of these three men create a tapestry of the human condition as seen through the lens of war, revealing brutality and compassion, heroism and cowardice, in equal measure.'--Provided by publisher. This 2015 MacLehose Paperback is in \u003cb\u003e good condition\u003c\/b\u003e. Heavy. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eISBN: 9780857053244 SKU: 1541182 \u003ci\u003eNote: Any image shown is from a stock photo and is not the actual book.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MacLehose","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48528290251029,"sku":"1541182","price":19.5,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0023\/2695\/4036\/files\/1541182.jpg?v=1725878751","url":"https:\/\/bookhaven.live\/products\/1541182","provider":"Book Haven","version":"1.0","type":"link"}