In a way Pierre Lemaitre is Arturo Perez Reverte French for its versatility. Convincing and fast-paced in black genre plots with the ambition of portraying our underworld; disturbing in its realism determined to expose so many miseries; fascinating in historical fictions with transcendent vocation from the juiciest intrahistories.
On this occasion we address the third installment of the saga "The children of disaster", started in 2013 perhaps with no intention of continuity but resumed between 2019 and 2020 with two separate books. In order to form a trilogy with that tragic aftertaste of a twentieth century already contemplated between nostalgia and the necessary oblivion.
Family secrets, colossal characters, twists and turns, tragedy and vaudeville in a powerful narrative, a masterful close to Lemaitre's foray into interwar France.
This Spring 1940. Thirty-year-old Louise Belmont runs naked and covered in blood down the Boulevard de Montparnasse. To understand the macabre situation she has just experienced, this young teacher must plunge into the madness of an unparalleled historical moment: while German troops relentlessly advance towards Paris and the French army is in full disbandment, hundreds of thousands of terrified people they flee in search of a safer place.
Trapped in this unprecedented exodus, and at the mercy of German bombs and fate, Louise's life in a Loire camp will end up crossing those of two deserting soldiers from the Maginot line, a passionate second lieutenant faithful to his moral principles. and a histrionic priest capable of standing up to the enemy.
You can now buy the book «The mirror of our sorrows», the novel by Pierre Lemaitre, here: