On the Saturday morning of January 9, 1993, while Jean Claude Romand was killing his wife and children, I was with mine in a parent-teacher meeting. Who could have imagined Jean Claude Romand as a murderer? He was after all a distinguished doctor at the World Health Organisation, an irreproachable husband and father and a loving son. If there was a problem, no one knew it. But there were many. Unknown to anyone Romand had no medical qualifications; he had no job and no influential contacts; and he had spent all his in-laws' money. 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. A mesmerising account of the hundreds of daily lies that propelled one man's life, The Adversary is also a meditation on the mystery of identity, evil and the desperate logic by which it is easier to kill than to confess.