The gravestone of a baby who lived less than one day casts the shadow of a man. Jeremy Hadley’s Great-grandfather is discovered to have taken the name and birth data of a child who died shortly after birth. Who was this Impostor? Was he good or evil? How should his present-day descendants feel about him? For that matter, should they alter their feelings about themselves based on this flaw in their ancestry?
The genealogical investigation is led by Jeremy’s live-in girlfriend, Debbie Danforth, who is also his partner in a start-up detective agency. What they find disrupts the structure of the Hadley family while revealing hitherto hidden information about events that preceded World War II in both Britain and the United States. Even their supporting associates in a covert federal agency discover facts that had been previously unknown to them.
This novel is leading readers in several countries to take a new look at their own family trees for past disconnections and substitutions that may change their outlooks on present-day family relationships.
Davidson Bookshelf 