Dimitri Karras and Marcus Clay are old friends, involved in small-time business and drug dealing. But when they cross paths with Wilton Cooper, they enter a world where merciless, unpredictable violence is the only certainty.

Berlin 1920. A young woman throws herself from a bridge into the Landwehr Canal, intent on suicide. But she is saved. She refuses to give any clue to her identity. She is literally a nobody. After two years of silence, she claims to be Anastasia, the fourth daughter of the Tsar of Russia. For over sixty years she lives with the firm conviction that she is, indeed, a grand duchess. It is only after her death in 1984 that DNA tests establish that the woman could not have been a Romanov. Who, then, was this mysterious woman, who lived a lie and convinced so many others of her fictional identity? And what of her own identity that she drowned that winter's night in Berlin? In The Pretender, Mary Morrissy writes the prequel to the Anastasia myth. She creates a fictional history for Franziska Schanzkowska, the Polish factory worker who so successfully donned the mantle of the doomed princess. From the few facts that are known, Morrissy fashions the biography of a nobody - an impoverished Polish childhood, an adolescence set against the First World war and the ruinous humiliation of Germany in defeat, a young adulthood blighted by violence, trauma and loss. The Pretender is a nesting doll of a book. Morrissy unspools the multiple intricacies of female identity and explores the strategies that women employ to survive in a calamitous world. Was Franziska Schanzkowska a fraud? Was she de

Door het contact met een schizofrene patiënt begint een psychiater ook zelf de greep op de werkelijkheid te verliezen.

Een oudere man wordt gekweld door de herinnering aan een meisje dat hij veertig jaar eerder onheus heeft behandeld.

Navertelling van de klassieke mythe met autobiografische elementen.

A Fabulously Engaging Novel, A Sunday Times Number 1 Bestseller, With Over 1.2 Million Copies Sold. Harry Silver Has It All. A Successful Job In Tv, A Gorgeous Wife, A Lovely Child. And In One Moment Of Madness, He Chucks It All Away. Man And Boy Is The Story Of How He Comes To Terms With His Life And Achieves A Degree Of Self-Respect, Bringing Up His Son Alone And, Gradually, Learning What Words Like Love And Family Really Mean. Very Well-Written, Pacy, Funny And Heart-Breakingly Moving. 'Parsons Has Written A Sharp, Witty And Wise Book Straight From His Heart. His Characters Are All Nitty-Gritty, Bounce-Off-The-Page, Real People; His Dialogue Is Brilliant.' Daily Mail

De confrontatie met een -reeds overleden - grootmoeder leidt een vrouw tot zelfkennis.