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Cassie Osbourne (6 KP) rated An Officer and a Spy in Books

Nov 9, 2018

An Officer and a Spy

Robert Harris | 2014 | Fiction & Poetry

8.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

The Dreyfus Affair was one of the biggest miscarriages of justice that France (and possibly the world) has ever seen and this book presents the story through the eyes of Colonel Georges Picquart.

Towards the beginning, I was a little disappointed in the book. The writing style is brilliant and how faithful it is to actual events is great but in some ways, this is also its downfall. The conspiracy went on for years which makes the pacing very slow in parts and incredibly quick and exciting in others. All the characters in this book, even the tiny bit characters, were real people tied up in the affair; however, none of these characters has any real development until the very end and only for a short amount of time. As someone who favours character-driven story arcs rather than plot-driven ones, this was very frustrating for me to read as they all seemed to be very one dimensional (with the exception, perhaps, of Henry) and it doesn't really make any of them terribly likeable.

All that being said, I did very much enjoy the last two hundred or so pages where the pace really picked up and became exciting as everything seemed to come together rather than people sitting on files and information - but this is, of course, the nature of courtrooms and trials.

Although I probably won't read this book again, I am glad that I did as it introduced me to an interesting army conspiracy in France that I will definitely be doing more research in to.

Characters - 6/10
Atmosphere - 9/10
Writing Style - 8/10
Plot - 7/10 (score majorly affected by pacing)
Intrigue - 6.5/10 (as above)
Logic - 10/10 (real events so difficult to score lower)
Enjoyment - 6.5/10 (again pacing and lack of character development)

Score average - 7.8/10