Product Description

The shocking true story of a respectable doctor and 18 years of lies and five murders. The book reveals the extremes to which ordinary people can go.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #940874 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-22
• Original language: French
• Binding: Hardcover
• 190 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
"On the morning of Saturday January 9th 1993, while Jean-Claude Romand was killing his wife and children, I was with mine in a parent-teacher meeting..." So begins Carrere's disturbing exploration of the mind of a ruthless killer, a man so entangled in the web of his own deceptions that it became easier to kill than confess. Every detail of Romand's life had been built on an elaborate edifice of fabrication. How could he have lied to so many for so long without anyone suspecting him?

His journey into madness began when Romand failed an exam at medical school. He quietly dropped out of college while friends and family continued to believe his career was advancing in leaps and bounds. To the outside world, he became a highly respected research scientist with the World Health Organisation, an esteemed intellectual and humanitarian who'd even been given a signed bust by Brigitte Bardot in gratitude for his support for her animal rights foundation. Somewhere in all the lying, the real Romand had been irretrievably lost. And when finally his dissimulated world began to crumble around him, the threat to his sense of self drove him to eradicate those closest to him. Not only did he murder his wife and young children, it also transpired that a few days earlier, Romand had also killed his parents.

Emmanuel Carrere's record of his correspondence with Romand charts a horrific journey into the psyche of a killer and questions the nature of human identity human, delusion and evil. With a keen sense of narrative and exacting control of an unravelling life, he draws a window into a darker place next door.--Rebecca Johnson

Evening Standard
'An Absolutley stunning piece of work, totally involving and unforgettable'

Sunday Times
'The story told here is truely beyond the imagination for even the best crime writer.'

Customer Reviews

Crime writing at its very best
A truly incredible book. Carrere manages to convey the horror of the murders and the depth of the deceit that lie at the heart of this story with great power and grace. Most amazing of all is the way in which the author succeeds in making the reader empathise with the murderer. This is crime writing at its very best. Not sordid, not sensational but deeply moving and incredibly gripping from start to finish.

A book that stays with you
The story itself is shocking, but what haunted me for ages afterwards was the feeling that although the author tried to get under Romand's skin, at the end of the day, Romand himself doesn't know who he is, or truly realise the enormity of his actions. Makes you wonder about little white lies...

A time to die
The eerie unreality of recent, terrible death hangs over this excellent book. It's as if it took people to die to disturb the flow of this man's life. The book is short, shocking and utterly terrifying.