April, 1940. Louise Belmont runs naked down the boulevard du Montparnasse. To understand the traumatic scene she has just witnessed, she will have to plunge headlong into the madness of the Phoney War, as France, seized by the panic of a new European conflict, descends into chaos.

Louise navigates this period of enormous upheaval in parallel with her fellow citizens - including Maginot Line conscripts Raoul and Gabriel, bistro-owner Monsieur Jules and confidence trickster Désiré Migault. The looming threat of German occupation uncovers long-buried secrets and makes for strange bedfellows, as one extraordinary twist of fate follows another.

With characteristic wit and verve, Pierre Lemaitre chronicles the fall of a nation crushed by circumstance. The final novel in his award-winning trilogy is an incandescent tale that veers from the tragic to the burlesque.