Book Review: An Officer and a Spy

Robert Harris has written a riveting historical novel about the infamous Dreyfus Affair that saw Captain Alfred Dreyfus falsely accused in 1894 of treason for sending French military secrets to the German Embassy. The discovery that someone was passing state secrets to Germany hit the French military brass hard. They had just lost a humiliating war in 1870-71 to Prussia. The war was essentially over within the first month with the Prussian capture of Napoleon III and his army well within French borders.