Pierre Lemaitre was born in Paris in 1951. He worked for many years as a teacher of literature before becoming a novelist.
He has won the Crime Writers' Association International Dagger three times, once alongside Fred Vargas, for "Alex", and twice as sole winner for "Camille" and "The Great Swindle". In 2013 "The Great Swindle" (published in French as "Au revoir là-haut") won the Prix Goncourt, France's leading literary award, and it will be released as a film in 2017.
In addition to his "Brigade Criminelle" novels starring Commandant Camille Verhoeven, Lemaitre writes standalone thrillers including "Blood Wedding" and the forthcoming "Three Days in a Life" and "Inhuman Resources". "The Great Swindle" will be developed into a trilogy in the coming years.