The Adversary: A True Story of Murder and Deception - Softcover

Carrere, Emmanuel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 074755417X ISBN 13: 9780747554172

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2001

Synopsis

Who could have imagined Romand as a murderer? He was, after all, a noted doctor at the World Health Organization, a groundbreaking researcher with connections to international humanitarian figures, a financial wizard entrusted with his in-law's life savings, a loving son who called his parents every evening to say good night. If there was a problem, no one knew it.;As it turned out, there were many: Romand had no medical degree; he had no job; he knew no influential contacts; he had spent his in-law's money. And when a relative went to break the terrible news of the murder of his wife and children to Romand's parents, they too were dead - murdered by the stranger who had been their son,

About this title

Product Description:

Jean Claude Romand was a noted doctor at the World Health Organization, a groundbreaking researcher, financial wizard and loving son who called his parents every night to say goodnight. In truth, Romand was none of these and, when his lies were revealed, he murdered his wife, children and parents.

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

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 074755417X
• ISBN 13: 9780747554172
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224