It tells the true story of the French officer Georges Picquart from 1896 to 1906, as he struggles to expose the truth about the doctored evidence that sent Alfred Dreyfus to Devil's Island.

Upon being promoted to run the Statistical Section, the top secret headquarters of French military intelligence, Georges Picquart begins to discover that the evidence that was used to convict Alfred Dreyfus of espionage, which resulted in his imprisonment for life on Devil's Island, is flimsy at best.

Warned off the investigation by his superiors, Picquart persists, risking his career and his life, to free an innocent man from unjust imprisonment and to expose a spy operating within the military.

[3] Anna Franco praised the book highly in a review for The Objective Standard, writing, “An Officer and a Spy is at once a compelling historical novel and a spy thriller, portraying a few people who take principled actions to save an innocent man.”[4] Robert Harris was inspired to write the novel by his friend Roman Polanski's longtime interest in the Dreyfus affair.

[9] It was announced in September 2018 that the project had been retitled J'accuse, and would go into production in the fall of 2018, starring Jean Dujardin as Picquart and co-starring Mathieu Amalric and Olivier Gourmet.