The Angel Maker

by Stefan Brijs

Translated from the original Dutch by Hester Velmans

After many years Doctor Victor Hoppe returns to the small village he grew up in. His return after an absence of many years generates a lot of interest - and suspicion - as he is accompanied by three triplets, all of whom share the same physical deformity as the doctor - a hare lip. These children are very quiet and are rarely seen in the village. But with time, and a series of apparently miraculous cures and tales of the wife he lost, the doctor begins to win the villagers over. He hires an ex schoolmistress, Charlotte, to look after the children and has strict instructions about the way they are to be brought up. But the longer Charlotte works with the doctor, the more she begins to suspect that the children - and the doctor - aren't what they seem.

As a child, the doctor was locked away in a harsh children's home run by nuns - because of his autism and his hare lip, he was assumed to be an idiot. He was eventually rescued but was determined never to succumb to the religious zealotry he witnessed in the convent and to dedicate his life instead to the pursuit of science. He began a career as a geneticist but his desire to correct the mistakes of nature lead him to eventual ruin and disgrace.

Stefan Brijs was born in 1970 in Flanders. He published his first novel, Degeneration, in 1997 and a year later published Crusades, a short story collection. His second novel Arend was highly acclaimed and his most recent novel is The Angel Maker which is shortlisted for the Golden Owl and Libris prizes.