‘Impeccably researched and beautifully written, The Winter Warriors is perfect for fans of Ben Macintyre and Robert Harris’ Paula Hawkins

‘There are echoes of Vasily Grossman in this gripping, chillingly urgent story of the horrors and heroism of war’ A.D. Miller

‘A fascinating and gripping novel about a forgotten corner of the Second World War. Remarkable and revelatory’ William Boyd

‘A sniper’s life, a thriller of the highest quality, as timely as it is gripping, by a very fine writer’ Philippe Sands

***Over 270,000 copies sold in French***

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November, 1939. A conscription officer arrives in the peaceful farming village of Rautjärvi. The Soviet Union has invaded, and for the first time in its history as an independent country, Finland is at war.

Setting off into the depths of winter to face the Red Army, the small group of childhood friends recruited from Rautjärvi have no idea whether any of them will ever return home. But their unit has a secret weapon: the young sniper Simo Häyhä, whose lethal skill in the snow-bound forests of the front line will earn him the nickname ‘The White Death’.

Drawing on the real-life figures and battles of the Finnish-Soviet Winter War, The Winter Warriors is a riveting, heart-pounding, utterly epic historical thriller from one of Europe’s most acclaimed crime writers.

____

‘The plot revolves around a small group of village lads who are conscripted together, one of whom, Simo, becomes the so-called White Death, one of the world’s most deadly snipers ? What makes it tick is the urgent, vital narrative as the Russians surge across the border and the Finns fight back with little more than grenades and rifles’  Bookbrunch
 
‘Chilling and distressing ? a genuine, breath-holding knock-out’ Le Parisien

‘A masterpiece’ Le Figaro  

‘A dazzling success’La Croix  

‘Magificent’L’Express  

‘Captivating’ Télérama  

‘Exhaustively researched, subtle, sensitive, and set against the background of a war which resonates with the present day. There are more than a few similarities between this story and the current Russian aggression in Ukraine’ France Info

‘Norek depicts with great humanity and profound empathy the courage and resilience of the Finns, fighting for survival in extreme conditions’Actualitté

‘At once epic and intimate’ Radio Télévision Suisse
 

**Winner of the Prix Jean Giono, the Prix Renaudot des lycéens and the Prix Le Mans – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry**

**Finalist for the Prix Interallié**  

**Shortlisted for the Prix Renaudot, the Prix André Malraux  and the Prix “Les Visionnaires”**

**Longlisted for the Prix Goncourt**

***Olivier Norek’s thriller  Between Two Worlds  was  The Times & Sunday Times  Crime Novel of the Year 2024***

“Exhilarating . . . This is not conventional crime” Barry Forshaw, FT

When a routine kidnapping case goes badly wrong, Capitaine Vincent Coste breaks his golden rule: he starts to take things personally.

And with his career hanging by a thread – his resignation letter parked in his superior’s desk draw – he is plunged into his most testing ordeal yet.

A raid on the vault at the Bobigny law courts. Five vital pieces of evidence swiped. Four men who can no longer be held: an armed robber, a foreign legionnaire, a kidnapper and a paedophile. But what is the connection between them?

With Coste and his team at a loss, it’s the moral outrage of another criminal that will throw up a lead: one they’ll follow to their breaking point – and beyond.

What readers are saying about Olivier Norek

You can see the similarities with the TV series Spiral, which can only be a major positive!

A hard hitting and gritty French crime read that makes an impact.

A great thriller, sardonic, humorous, dark.

I loved this book. Well written and had an authentic feel to it. A complete page turner.

Translated from the French by Nick Caistor

“Exhilarating . . . This is not conventional crime” Barry Forshaw, Independent

Introducing Olivier Norek: Former police officer, writer on Spiral and an award-winning, million-copy bestseller.

A corpse that wakes up during the autopsy.

A case of spontaneous human combustion.

There is little by the way of violent crime that Capitaine Victor Coste has not encountered in his fifteen years policing France's most notorious suburb — but nothing like this.

As he struggles to find a link between the cases, he receives a pair of anonymous letters highlighting the fates of two women whose deaths were never explained – two more blurred faces among the ranks of the lost and the damned.

Why were their murders not investigated? Coste is not the only one asking that question. Someone out there believes justice is best served on a cold mortuary slab.

What readers are saying about The Lost and the Damned

You can see the similarities with the TV series Spiral, which can only be a major positive!

A hard hitting and gritty French crime read that makes an impact.

A great thriller, sardonic, humorous, dark.

I loved this book. Well written and had an authentic feel to it. A complete page turner.

Translated from the French by Nick Caistor