First published in 1881, Anatole France's novel "The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard" is both clever and wise and in the manner of the great masters of literary style - a book that is full of suspense from beginning to end.

Sylvestre Bonnard, an elderly and highly esteemed scholar, encounters unexpected problems when he embarks upon a search for an ancient ecclesiastical literary document that takes him from Paris to Sicily and then into his own life history. For the sake of justice and love, he ends up committing acts that at best are of doubtful legality...