It is September 1938 and during a heatwave Europe tensely awaits the
outcome of the Munich conference, where they will learn if there is to be a
war. In Paris people are waiting too, among them Mathieu, Jacques and
Philippe, each wrestling with their own love affairs, doubts and angsts and
none of them ready to fight. The second volume in Sartre s wartime Roads to
Freedom trilogy, The Reprieve cuts between locations and characters to
build an impressionistic collage of the hopes, fears and self-deception of
an entire continent as it blinkers itself against the imminent threat of
war.