The Adversary: A True Story of Monstrous Deception

“Justifiably considered the French In Cold Blood” (The Paris Review), The Adversary is a landmark work of true crime—and a deeply personal investigation of inexplicable evil.

“On the Saturday morning of January 9, 1993, while Jean-Claude Romand was killing his wife and children, I was with mine in a parent-teacher meeting.”

So begins Emmanuel Carrère’s unclassifiable masterpiece, now newly reissued. The crimes shocked France. For eighteen years, Romand’s life was the model of bourgeois conte...