Duplicity

When her adoptive mother died in 2009, Donna Freed set out to track down her birth mother. What she discovered was truly shocking—she was the daughter of a pair of infamous con artists, at the heart of one of the biggest true crime stories to grip the USA in the 1960s.

Previously redacted records from the infamous Louise Wise Services in New York revealed that Donna’s mother (27, Jewish and single) and her father (40, Catholic, married with four children) had hatched a plan to defraud an insurance company and run off to Spain to raise Donna. Further investigation revealed that in 1967, Donna’s mother, Mira Lindenmaier, faked her own death in a drowning accident off City Island in the Bronx for the double indemnity insurance money.

Donna loved her tricky, unconventional adoptive mother but was now keen to meet her birth mother and find out how and why her parents abandoned her. How would she feel towards Mira, her ‘real’ Mum? How has becoming a mother herself impacted her feelings towards her two mothers?

Gripping and fast-paced, this extraordinary memoir is also incredibly moving, tackling fundamental questions about motherhood and identity, nature versus nurture.