Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Week-end à Zuydcoote | 1950 | Robert Merle | Buy |
| 2 | Death Is My Trade | 1954 | Robert Merle | Buy |
| 3 | The Island | 1962 | Robert Merle | Buy |
| 4 | The Day of the Dolphin | 1967 | Robert Merle | Buy |
| 5 | Behind the Glass | 1972 | Robert Merle | Buy |
| 6 | Malevil | 1973 | Robert Merle | Buy |
| 7 | The Virility Factor | 1977 | Robert Merle | Buy |
| 8 | Vittoria | 1986 | Robert Merle | Buy |
| 9 | The Idol | 1989 | Robert Merle | Buy |
Robert Merle’s standalone novels are remarkably varied. Weekend at Zuydcoote (1949) is autobiographical war fiction about the Dunkirk evacuation. Death Is My Trade (1954) gets inside the mind of a concentration camp commandant. The Day of the Dolphin (1967) imagines a scientist who teaches dolphins to speak, only to have the military co-opt his research. Malevil (1972) strands a group of French villagers in a medieval castle after nuclear war.
Each book takes a different genre and premise, but Merle was always interested in the same question: how do people behave when the rules break down? His characters face wars, apocalypses, and moral extremes, and Merle observes their responses with a scientist’s detachment and a novelist’s empathy. The later novels, Vittoria (1986) and The Idol (1989), are less well known but continue his exploration of power and human nature.