The Great Swindle. Pierre Lemaitre. 2015 435 pages. Translated from the French by Frank Wynne.This historical novel won the Prix Goncourt awarded for “the best and most imaginative prose work of the year” in French literature when originally published in 2012 as Au Revoir La Haut, and for good reason. The French film adaptation won a Cesar, the French equivalent of an Oscar. Unfortunately my severely atrophied high school French means that I had to read the English translation. I can only imagine with envy the enjoyment the original would give to someone who is fluent in French. In spite of a few lapses in proofreading, the story flows beautifully in the English translation, but the English title is not imaginative or catching. Kudos to to translator, nevertheless. Set in France toward the end of WW1 and the aftermath of that war, the horrors of war are vividly depicted. But the very complex plot is not really about the war as much as it is about the consequences for the survivors and the wounded victims alike as they try to adjust to living in a society that had lost 1.35 million of its young men with three times that number injured, with no moral compass, and with no sense of direction. Like most of the characters in John Irving novels, the characters here are almost all morally bankrupt but the author manages to make many of them into likeable rogues. False identities of both the living and the dead, robbed graves, lust, greed, infidelities, divided families, and scams to take advantage of survivors and mourners abound. Ironies are multilayered and there are surprises in every chapter. Nothing is predicable although as the story unfolds, every twist and turn seems realistic. Opiate addiction, homophobia, betrayal of friends and family and corrupt politicians and public figures keen to prey on the vulnerable are all portrayed in great detail. This is one of the best war-related historical novels I have ever read. A must-read for anyone interested in the history and tragic consequences of war.