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Alain Delambre is a 57-year-old former HR executive, drained by four years of hopeless unemployment.
All he is offered are small, demoralizing jobs. He has reached his very lowest ebb, and can see no way out.
So when a major company finally invites him to an interview, Alain Delambre 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 hostage-taking.
Alain Delambre commits body and soul in this struggle to regain his dignity.
But if he suddenly realised that the dice had been loaded against him from the start, his fury would be limitless.
And what began as a role-play game could quickly become a bloodbath.
Pierre Lemaitre
Pierre Lemaitre was born in Paris in 1951. He worked for many years as a teacher of literature before becoming a novelist.
He has won the Crime Writers' Association International Dagger three times, once alongside Fred Vargas, for Alex, and twice as sole winner for Camille and The Great Swindle. In 2013 The Great Swindle (published in French as Au revoir là-haut won the Prix Goncourt, France's leading literary award.
In addition to his Brigade Criminelle novels starring Commandant Camille Verhoeven, Lemaitre writes standalone thrillers including Blood Wedding.
More by Pierre Lemaitre
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