La Bête humaine

by Émile Zola

"La Bête humaine" by Émile Zola is a novel published in 1890, the seventeenth volume in the Rougon-Macquart series. Set along the Paris-Le Havre railway line, it follows Jacques Lantier, a train engineer who suffers from hereditary murderous impulses triggered by sexual desire. When a railway executive is brutally murdered, Jacques becomes entangled with Séverine Roubaud and her husband in a dark web of jealousy, violence, and deadly secrets. This thriller shocked Zola's contemporaries with its catalog of crimes and catastrophes.