Amnesia by Michael Ridpath
Atmospheric, sinuous and elegant, Amnesia demonstrates Ridpath’s special talent. – Daily Mail
He woke up to discover he had killed the only woman he ever loved. She discovered it was her grandmother.
Alastair is a doctor in his eighties, living in a cottage by a loch in Scotland. He wakes up in hospital having fallen and hit his head, inducing almost total amnesia. A young family friend, Clemence, is brought in to help rekindle his memory. In his cottage Clemence finds a manuscript. The first line shocks her:
It was a warm, still night and the cry of a tawny owl swirled through the birch trees by the loch, when I killed the only woman I have ever loved.
She reads the short prologue: it describes a murder by someone who is clearly the old doctor. The victim is Clemence’s French grandmother, Sophie.
Clemence decides to read the book to the old doctor as it describes how he and his friends met Sophie in Paris in 1935. As they read on, there are people closing in on the cottage by the loch who are willing to kill to make sure that the old man’s secrets stay forgotten.
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