{"product_id":"the-great-swindle","title":"The Great Swindle","description":"Used hardcover in Very Good condition. 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. \u003cbr\u003e 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 P?ricourt, 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. \u003cbr\u003e 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. \u003cbr\u003e 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.\u003cp\u003eISBN: 1623659035\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eISBN: 1623659035\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eISBN: 1623659035\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Lemaitre, Pierre","offers":[{"title":"Very Good","offer_id":53929607069979,"sku":"mon0000800682","price":7.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0958\/4004\/3291\/files\/2095213482766.jpg?v=1789166079","url":"https:\/\/bookalley.com\/products\/the-great-swindle","provider":"Book Alley","version":"1.0","type":"link"}