The Dogs and the Wolves

Second Hand

Excellent Condition

Ada grows up motherless, looked after first by her father, then by an indomitable, social-climbing aunt, and eventually moves to Paris with her aunt's family, all of them looking for a brighter future. Ada makes a living in Paris as an artist, painting scenes from the world she has left behind.

Her cousin Ben, intense and ferociously intelligent, has loved her for years; they share memories - together they survived the terrible pogroms of their childhood - and he presses her to marry him. But Harry Sinner is also in Paris, moving in exclusive circles, and infatuated with the daughter of a wealthy gentile banker.

One day, he buys two paintings that remind him of his past... and the course of Ada's life changes once more. But as recession and revolutions shake previously rich regimes, even a solid international bank can find itself over-extended and vulnerable to greed.

Ben, now working for the Sinner family bank in Paris, is well-placed to take the kind of risks he could only dream of in the past. And as summer draws to a close, Ada's world is disintegrating and she is faced with a fateful decision.

The Dogs and the Wolves, painted on a broad, vibrant canvas, with Nemirovsky's acute eye for small cruelties and everyday sacrifice, is an achingly poignant novel about blood and belonging, dreams and desire.