2008. George "The Wall" Crozat has racked up thirty-eight victories (twenty-three of them by knock-out), eight defeats, and an empty bank account. Finally ready to hang up his gloves and focus on his career as a police officer, he is chiefly concerned with funding his voracious appetite for prostitutes.

When a shady bouncer offers him a photograph, an address and a chance to turn a real profit with his fists, the temptation is irresistible. Before long the money is flowing, but Crozat has unknowingly become a pawn in a very dangerous game. Powerful forces are using his brutality to keep their own secrets, and Crozat teeters on the precipice of an abyss that stretches fifty years into the past, to the darkest chapter of France's colonial history.

Drawing on his own father's experience of the Algerian War, Antonin Varenne's darkly personal thriller shines a light on corruption, torture, conspiracy and revenge.

Translated by: Frank Wynne