The Adversary by Emmanuel Carrere

This kind of lie just happens on impulse. As soon as it pops out you are sorry, you dream of being able to go back one minute in time, to undo the insane mistake you just made.

--Emmanuel Carrere, The Adversary (Picador,  2000, translated by Linda Coverdale) 

Jean-Claude Romand was a first-year med student in Lyon and did not take his finals that year.  He never actually returned to classes but was able to register as a second-year student for the next twelve years, learning to be a doctor without ever receiving any credits or taking any exams; even he was surprised he could get away with this. He then married Florence, his sweetheart, had two children and pretended, for eighteen years, that he was a researcher at The World Health Organization across the Swiss border in Geneva.  He spent his days reading medical journals and driving around and often on week-ends pretended to attend medical conventions and simply stayed in the airport hotel watching television.  For money he had his friends and family give him funds to invest, money he used for his family to live on.  Of course this couldn't last and his life was about to be exposed when friends asked for their money and interest to be returned.   In 1993 he killed his wife, his two children (aged seven and five) and his parents, setting his house on fire but saving himself.  Sentenced to life in jail Romand was freed on parole in 2019.

Carrere tells this story in great detail, based on meticulous research; none of Romand's close friends or relatives apparently ever questioned who he was or what he did and even his wife never called him at his "job."  This is an extremely depressing story, suggesting how little we may know compared to what we think we know. The details of Romand's life and deceptions are hard to believe, much less comprehend, but the last chapters of the book are about Carrere's personal involvement with Romand while Romand was in prison and serve little purpose, as Carrere has no way to determining the truth of much of what Romand tells him.