The Gods Want Blood

 Set in Paris during the years of the Reign of Terror, The Gods Want Blood centres on the rise to power of the Jacobin sympathizer Évariste Gamelin, a young painter who becomes a juror on a local Revolutionary tribunal. Caught up in the bloodthirsty madness surrounding him, he helps to dispense cruel justice in the name of his ideals, while at the same time succumbing to his own petty instincts of revenge when he jealously pursues a rival for the affections of his lover Élodie. Benefiting from Anatole France’s meticulous historical research, this fascinating and timeless novel sheds light on a complex world of rival factions and institutions of state terror and vividly portrays the lives and psyches of ordinary people who are complicit in acts of public barbarity. "A splendid evocation of the clubs, courts and murderous tumbrils of revolutionary Paris." TLS "One of the best novels written about the French Revolution and its aftermath." TLS