The Scientist Who Wasn't There

The Scientist Who Wasn't There

by Joanne Briggs
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date: 05/06/2025

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'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

'An astonishingly original memoir about truth, identity and the ethics of science' The Telegraph


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.

ISBN:
9781804189740
9781804189740
Category:
Memoirs
Format:
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date:
05-06-2025
Language:
English
Publisher:
Bonnier Books UK
Joanne Briggs

Joanne's debut book, The Scientist Who Wasn't There, was awarded the first Bridport Prize for memoir in April 2023. She was a barrister for many years and has continued to work in other legal roles, in a career spanning nearly four decades. She lives in Sussex.

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