The Missing World

Following the acclaimed Criminals comes a spellbinding new novel that confirms Margot Livesey’s place "right up there," as Liz Smith wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer, "in the realm of P. D. James and the esteemed Patricia Highsmith."

What if — by stroke of fortune — you could start afresh, could wipe away that catastrophic blunder in your past? And to what lengths would you go to establish that in fact you’d done nothing wrong at all? After an accident robs Hazel of three years’ worth of memory, just such an opportunity is granted to Jonathan, undone by his betrayal of this woman, whom he professes to love above all. While he begins to rewrite their history, two other misfits — an American sojourner and a luckless English actress — knock about London, each of them haunted by indelible memories they would much rather forget. Eventually their hopes of redemption draw them toward Jonathan’s house, where Hazel has become a virtual prisoner . . .

Replete with compelling characters and extravagantly plotted, The Missing World weaves together these separate quests for love and truth in a manner both thrilling and, ultimately, revealing about our imperfect lives.