The misadventures of an 18-year-old boy without education or convictions, a liar and manipulator, who went through the war playing: in four years he put on five uniforms, deserted from four different armies - today he wore a bandage with a swastika, and tomorrow he was a patriot. For many years, he deceived his own son, who became a war journalist, by telling fictitious stories in which he was always the hero. In May 1987, when the trial of Nazi criminal Klaus Barbie began in Lyon, the son learned that an archive in northern France contained his father's court file, opened at the end of the war, and gained access to it. Not one, but two trials begin at once. Barbie will have to answer for her crimes, her father for his lies. What makes the story particularly poignant is that this is an autobiographical novel about the nature of evil, which also touches on collective memory. Sorge Chalandon (b. 1952) is a modern French writer and journalist, author of ten novels. "Son of a Scoundrel" has been shortlisted for the 2021 Prix Goncourt.