The True Deceiver

Description

In the deep winter snows of a Swedish hamlet, a strange young woman fakes a break-in at the house of an elderly artist in order to persuade her that she needs companionship. But what does she hope to gain by doing this? And who ultimately is deceiving whom? In this portrayal of two women grappling with truth and lies, nothing can be taken for granted. By the time the snow thaws, both their lives will have changed irrevocably.

The writer and artist Tove Jansson (1914-2001) is best known as the creator of the Moomin stories, which have been published in thirty-five languages and are being relaunched through Puffin. However, for the last three decades of her life, from 1968, she turned her attention to writing for adults. Her bestseller, The Summer Book, is a modern Scandinavian classic and has sold nearly 100,000 copies in the UK alone.

I loved this book. It's cool in both senses of the word, understated yet exciting. When I finished it I read it all over again. The characters still haunt me. -- Ruth Rendell The True Deceiver glitters with the kind of sharpness that might just cut you... It is one of Jansson's most deceptively quiet, most astonishing compositions. -- Ali Smith Tove Jansson was a genius -- Philip Pulman The True Deceiver is a quiet masterpiece...the novel is haunting, complex and mysterious * The Age, Melbourne *