The scapegoat

While traveling through France, John, a disillusioned English academic, encounters his exact physical double, a manipulative French aristocrat named Jean de Gué. After a night of heavy drinking, Jean steals John’s identity, leaving the Englishman to wake up in the Frenchman’s life. Forced to assume control of a crumbling glass-blowing estate and a fractured family, John navigates the resentment of a neglected wife, a morphine-addicted mother, and a resentful sister. He must manage the failing family business while concealing his ignorance of their complicated, often cruel, histories.

Readers drawn to psychological tension and the mechanics of identity will find interest in how a stranger attempts to repair a life he did not build. The story appeals to those who enjoy witnessing an outsider apply their own moral framework to a decadent, hostile environment. A reader finishes the book with an understanding of how easily a reputation can be rewritten and how a substitute can sometimes provide more genuine care than a blood relative.