The "jubilant and exciting" saga of one prominent French family in postwar Paris, Beirut, and Saigon—an electrifying novel of passion, greed, murder, and revenge (Sandrine Bajos, Le Parisien)   The Pelletiers are a prominent French family living in 1948 Beirut. The patriarch, Louis, has built a successful business that he hopes to pass on to his eldest son. With no head for management, Jean nearly sinks the company, then marries a materialistic young woman who insists they emigrate to Paris and join high society. But there is another reason Jean must leave—he has committed a terrible crime.   Youngest son Etienne is sent to make his fortune in Saigon. There, he begins investigating a covert scheme to channel smuggled goods and cash to the Viet Minh. But the evidence he collects presents a real threat to his own life.   François, the middle brother, arrives in Paris and...

Jean Garnier lives on the fringes - a lonely nobody who has lost everything dear to him. His girlfriend was killed in an unexplained accident, his mother has just been sent to prison - he has even lost his job after the sudden death of his boss.In one last, desperate cry for help, Jean sets up seven lethal bombs, hidden all over Paris and timed so that one will explode every 24 hours.After the first detonation, Jean gives himself up to the police. He has one simple demand: his mother must be released, or the daily explosions will continue.Camille Verhoeven is faced with a race against time to uncover the secrets of this troubled young man and avert a massive human disaster.

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...

When Alain Delambre lost his job four years ago, he lost everything. Now he's breaking all the rules for one last shot at the life he thinks he deserves."Lemaitre has dared everything here." Le Parisien"A really excellent suspense novelist." Stephen King Alain Delambre is a fifty-seven-year-old former HR executive, drained by four years of hopeless unemployment. The only job offers he gets are for low-level, demoralizing positions. He has reached rock bottom and can see no way out.So when a major company finally invites him in for an interview, Alain is ready to do anything—borrow money, shame his wife and his daughters, and even participate in the ultimate recruitment test: a role-playing game that involves taking hostages.Alain vows to commit body and soul in this struggle to regain his dignity. But if he had realized that the odds were stacked against him from the beginning, he...