V13: Chronicle of a Trial

Carrère (The Adversary) delivers a clear-eyed and soul-searching portrait of the nine-month trial, beginning in 2021, of those accused of plotting or assisting in the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, which killed more than 130 people. The narrative is sculpted and expanded from a series of weekly columns Carrère wrote for the magazine Le Nouvel Obs, and it begins with a harrowing recreation of the multipronged assault led by ISIS on November 13—the restaurant shootings in the 10th arrondissement, the hours-long slaughter at the Bataclan music venue, and the suicide bombing outside the Stade de France—via testimony from survivors. Carrère then turns to the 14 defendants, attempting to understand their culpability and motivations, especially those of Salah Abdeslam, who was ordered by his ISIS superiors to blow himself up during the attack, but either failed to do so or changed his mind. The mystery of Abdeslam’s conscience fuels much of the meditative narrative, but the book never favors a single perspective, effectively mirroring the spirit of justice in its willingness to weigh all sides. It’s an unforgettable journey through the abyss. (Nov.)