New Releases by Pierre BOULLE

The anti-hero is John Butler, back from the war in the Far East branded a coward, a man for whom heroin had become a means of retreat from the horrors of battle. An addict now, he seeks help at a clinic and listens to the oft-repeated exhortation to find a consuming interest into which he can channel all his energies and aspirations. Butler concentrates on the one interest the war has left him - heroin. The combination of his past contacts as a chemistry student at University and his present contact as a drug pusher pave the way to an obsession. Provided with a secret laboratory by the head of the drug organization which employs him, he succeeds in perfecting a technique for producing the purest heroin ever refined. This however, is only the beginning of Butler''s cure.

A group of scientists dissatisfied with world conditions establish a global government that speedily banishes the world''s ills, but other ills take their place.

Military operations in the primitive Asian jungle are complicated by the presence of an unknown source privy to every movement.

De Gary Davis à Einstein, beaucoup de rêveurs (mais dont les rêves forcent parfois à réfléchir) ont prêché la nécessité d’un gouvernement central de la Terre, seul capable de faire face aux problèmes actuels. Un Gouvernement mondial scientifique, c’est ce qu’a imaginé Pierre Boulle. Mais les savants qui le composent ont ceci de particulier qu’ils sont farouchement ennemis d’une technique inhumaine, horreur souvent décrite par des romanciers d’anticipation. Leur ambition est infiniment plus élevée. Celle de Fawell, le Président, disciple à sa manière du père Teilhard de Chardin, c’est l’essor spirituel de l’Humanité, l’accès de tous à la connaissance sacrée. Tel est l’Esprit de la révolution scientifique. Cette ambition ne se réalise pas. Pour conjurer le démon mélancolie qui menace de ravager le monde, les savants sont fatalement amenés à instaurer un programme de divertissements de plus en plus grossiers, de plus en plus barbares. Tels sont les Jeux. Comment de saintes intentions peuvent se trouver peu à peu déformées par les événements et par l’humaine nature au point d’aboutir à un résultat exécrable, diamétralement opposé à l’idéal initial, c’est un thème cher à Pierre Boulle, qu’il illustre ici à sa manière habituelle, avec un mélange de sérieux et d’humour qui n’épargne guère les autorités.

Originally published as Le photographe. Paris, Julliard, 1967.

"How far will a frustrated photographer go to get an exclusive shot that will make the front page of every paper in the world? Can he take part in a plot to assassinate his country''s president?"--

Author''s true adventures during World War II, which inspired his novel "The bridge over the River Kwai."

The author of the Bridge over the River Kwai tells his own true adventures as a secret agent in the Far East.

Science fiction roman.

This is a very strange story. A Chinese executioner in the Middle Ages -- or at least at some far distant time unspecified -- is banned because it is discovered that he murders just before he executes! Good book about a Kafka-like society where you may kill but you may not murder. The motive of the executioner in doing what he does is not explained.

Ironic story of a French intellectual in the British Intelligence during World War II , who cracks under torture but later tries to pay for his defection with his life.

Satirical story of the tense relationships among French employees of a Malayan rubber plantation of the 1930''s.

Story of a French planter in Malaya, his American wife, and a Chinese communist girl, and what happens when their values come into conflict.

Secret moral lapse on the part of a French prosecutor leads ironically to his being hailed as a hero, while he becomes responsible for the death of an innocent man.

Polish refugee who moves in high British circles is suspected of being a German agent by the head of the counter-espionage.