Introduction to Stochastic Calculus Applied to Finance, translated from French, is a widely used classic graduate textbook on mathematical finance and is a standard required text in France for DEA and PhD programs in the field.
Most folks familiar with Steve Shreve's Stochastic Calculus Models for Finance will be surprised at its brevity, for this work is aimed at different audiences.
Whereas Shreve's work is aimed at mathematicians and physicists who are coming to finance, and building on the commonalities of understandings of time series and data sets and signals, Lamberton & Lapeyre's work is aimed at an audience of mathematically trained engineers, who look at data sets as information for solving problems. Shreve's work, is, therefore, to help people come up with mathematical proofs, and L&L's is to help people solve problems.
Both probabilistic and partial differential equation approaches are covered, so both those from electrical and telecommunication engineering and mechanical engineering will be satisfied and on familiar ground. Numerical and algorithmic methods are also covered for those with systems analysis and operations management backgrounds.
This book, however, is decidedly for those who have had significant mathematical training. Whereas with Hull, Wilmott, Neftci, or Joshi you can play around with their approaches almost instantly in Excel or other programming tools (VBA, C, etc.), Lamberton and Lapeyre's work is for those who think out loud with a white board and others do the dirty work of coding. This work lacks specific examples, data sets, etc. Which makes it difficult to place. Its clarity and brevity are welcome, and it expands the knowledge beyond Hull of those who are not trained in math and came up the practical coding grunt side of quantfin. But it also is not a complete theoretical treatment for the first string math and theory set.
In short, the book is what it is: a short primer on a large area of mathematics in finance for those well-trained in a variety of engineering and applied mathematical subjects. In other words, this book is for the French, because all the best French students are always Engineers first and something else afterwards. If you also happen to be trained as an engineer and find Hull, Wilmott, Joshi & Neftci too easy, and Shreve too hard, then this is the book for you. Or if you are like me, and you've banged your head against this stuff for years just through the happenstance of your career and want to see how a mathematician writes about your gritty world, this is a great book for shedding light in areas filled with cobwebs.