The Adversary

Publisher and industry reviews

UK Kirkus review

Sometimes a writer finds a story that is more fantastical than fiction. When Carrere picked up his morning newspaper one winter morning in 1993 he came across such a tale - the extraordinary case of Jean-Claude Romand. This seemingly respectable French doctor had murdered his entire family - his wife, two young children, even the dog. He then drove over 100 kilometres to coldly murder his elderly parents. Only then did Romand's true identity begin to unravel. Romand had never been a doctor; he had not even sat his medical exams. His whole life was a sham. Yet no one knew - not even his devoted wife. Each day, saying that he was leaving for work at the World Health Organisation offices over the border in Geneva, he would drive aimlessly around, go for walks in the forest, sit in anonymous cafes and read all the days newspapers. He sent a postcard to his parents marking with an 'X' his office window at WHO, even though he had never been there. Only when financial ruin threatened, did he decide it was easier to obliterate the present than face up to his past. Carrere sat through Romand's trial, corresponded with and eventually met him in prison. In beautifully spare language he shows how Romand's first deceit - that he graduated as a doctor in Lyon - inevitably led to another, then another, until lying was his only way of living. This acute book probes behind the facade of a middle class marriage, asking how such deception could continue undetected for so long. But in asking this, it forces us to throw suspicion on our own assumed certainties about those whom we are close. An uncomfortable yet compelling read, The Adversary will surely become a classic of true life crime. Review by DEA BIRKETT (Kirkus UK)

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