<b>In “a dazzlingly clever and immensely entertaining novel,” an Englishman switches lives with his doppelganger, a French count with a dysfunctional family (<i>New York Times</i>).</b><br><br>By chance, John and Jean—one English, the other French—meet in a provincial railway station. Their resemblance to each other is uncanny, and they spend the next few hours talking and drinking —until at last John falls into a drunken stupor. It’s to be his last carefree moment, for when he wakes, Jean has stolen his identity and disappeared. So the Englishman steps into the Frenchman’s shoes, and faces a variety of perplexing roles - as owner of a chateau, director of a failing business, head of a fractious family, and master of nothing.<br><br>Gripping and complex, <i>The Scapegoat</i> is a masterful exploration of doubling and identity, and of the dark side of the self.<br><br>“What a magnificent thriller this is.” —<i>The New York Times Book Review</i><br><br>Praise for Daphne Du Maurier:<br><br>“No other popular writer has so triumphantly defied classification . . . She satisfied all the questionable criteria of popular fiction, and yet satisfied the exacting requirements of “real literature,” something very few novelists ever do.” ―Margaret Forster, author of <i>Daphne Du Maurier: The Secret Life of the Renowned Storyteller</i><br><br>“She wrote exciting plots, she was highly skilled at arousing suspense, and she was, too, a writer of fearless originality” —<i>The Guardian</i>