From the author of the "wonderfully ingenious" (Marilyn Stasio, New
York Times Book Review) novel After The Crash comes a brilliant work
of deception that dives deep into the psyche of a child and cruel game
of manipulating a person's memory.
Four-year-old Malone Moulin is haunted by nightmares of being handed
over to a complete stranger and begins claiming his mother is not his
real mother. His teachers at school say that it is all in his
imagination as his mother has a birth certificate, photos of him as a
child and even the pediatrician confirms Malone is her son. The school
psychologist, Vasily, believes otherwise as the child vividly describes
an exchange between two women. Vasily begins recording their
conversations and reinterprets the creatures Malone uses in the childish
tales he recounts to his stuffed toy to piece the story together as much
as he can.
Convinced that Malone is telling the truth, Vasile approaches police
commander Marianne Augresse with the case, who has been searching for a
gang of thieves that robbed a luxury store and left a couple dead in the
neighboring town of Deauville to no avail. Not knowing why a child would
lie and with perhaps her own own maternal and protective instinct
kicking in, Marianne takes Vasile's plead for help seriously.
Marianne and her team soon discern that Malone's memory is in the hands
of those around him; the cold members of the Moulin family and the
people that they associate themselves with. With Malone's recollection
of the past quickly fading to give way to pirates, animals and other
more innocent thoughts children have at his age, Marianne is desperate
to find a through line.
Well-crafted and showcasing the fragility of a child's cognition, The
Double Mother is a riveting investigation to follow.
