The Voice of the People - Softcover

Horace Grondin, deputy head of the Surete is in fact Charles Bassicousse, sentenced sixteen years earlier for a murder he did not commit. He is obsessed with wreaking his revenge on Antoine Tarpagnan, the man he believes did commit the crime. Tarpagnan, an army captain, has fallen in love with Gabriella Pucci, the mistress of Paris's greatest villain. As Tarpagnan searches the underworld for Gabriella, Grondin searches for him. Vautrin's novel revels in the chaos and passion of the period culminating in the savage repression of the Commune. The final climactic moments between Grondin and Tarpagnan take place on the barricades as Paris descends into a fury of bloodletting and panic.

Jean Vautrin was born in 1933. He has enjoyed a long and varied career, including a spell teaching French Literature at the University of Bombay in India, working as reporter and cartoonist on the Illustrated Weekly, and working in films alongside directors Roberto Rossellini and Vincente Minnelli. His novels include UN GRAND PAS VERS LE BON DIEU, which won the Prix Goncourt, France's highest literary accolade, in 1989, and SYMPHONIE GRABUGE, which won the Prix Populiste in 1994.