The Scientist Who Wasn't There
05 June 2025Imprint: Ithaka
Synopsis
'A page-turner with a mystery to solve, and a meditation on what it means for a child to know their parents' - Cathy Rentzenbrink
'An exceptional, entirely unpredictable, real-life thriller' - Michael Mansfield
WINNER OF THE BRIDPORT PRIZE FOR MEMOIR
What would you do to find out the truth about someone you love? A forensic, propulsive book about the line between fact and fiction.
Renowned scientist Professor Michael Briggs was many things:
A Space expert at NASA
An adviser to the World Health Organisation
A successful Big Pharma executive
But Michael Briggs had a secret.
A scandal broke out in 1986 when research he conducted was revealed to be compromised. Patients were also claiming that a pregnancy test he pioneered had caused devastating birth defects. Soon after his fall from grace, Briggs was dead, struck down by a mystery illness in a foreign country
Briggs left behind a long list of publications, patents, and inventions. But he also left behind hundreds of people who believe they are victims of his negligence and who are still fighting for justice to this day.
And he left someone else: his daughter, Joanne. After decades of wondering who her father really was, Joanne decided to investigate for herself. In hypnotic prose, she uncovers the secret that shaped her father's entire life and made his story more fantastic than any science fiction. As she discovered, Briggs's greatest invention was himself.
'An exceptional, entirely unpredictable, real-life thriller' - Michael Mansfield
WINNER OF THE BRIDPORT PRIZE FOR MEMOIR
What would you do to find out the truth about someone you love? A forensic, propulsive book about the line between fact and fiction.
Renowned scientist Professor Michael Briggs was many things:
A Space expert at NASA
An adviser to the World Health Organisation
A successful Big Pharma executive
But Michael Briggs had a secret.
A scandal broke out in 1986 when research he conducted was revealed to be compromised. Patients were also claiming that a pregnancy test he pioneered had caused devastating birth defects. Soon after his fall from grace, Briggs was dead, struck down by a mystery illness in a foreign country
Briggs left behind a long list of publications, patents, and inventions. But he also left behind hundreds of people who believe they are victims of his negligence and who are still fighting for justice to this day.
And he left someone else: his daughter, Joanne. After decades of wondering who her father really was, Joanne decided to investigate for herself. In hypnotic prose, she uncovers the secret that shaped her father's entire life and made his story more fantastic than any science fiction. As she discovered, Briggs's greatest invention was himself.
Details
05 June 2025288 pages
9781804189726Imprint: Ithaka
Reviews
'A page-turner with a mystery to solve, and a meditation on what it means for a child to know their parents'Cathy Rentzenbrink
An exceptional, entirely unpredictable, real-life thriller, this is not about death but life: how it is lived and perceived, what is real and what is not. Told from the inside, where it hurts the most.
In today's world, in the face of AI, fake news, the abandonment of fact checking and deep fake identities, Joanne, lawyer turned truth-sleuth, keeps you hooked throughout anticipating the next revelation as she crosses the boundaries of belief. Far, far stranger than fiction and far more salutary.Michael Mansfield, author of The Power In The People