A dazzling literary mystery from prizewinning author Marcus Sedgwick, for fans of Scarlett Thomas, Carlos Ruiz Zafon and Patrick Suskind.

In Paris, in the year 1899, Marcel Despres is arrested for the murder of his wife and transferred to Salpetriere asylum. And so the story might have stopped.

But this is no ordinary patient: Marcel Despres, Mister Memory, is a man who cannot forget. And it is no ordinary case: the hurried cover-up hints at dark secrets in the shadows.

A policeman and a doctor decide to unravel the mystery...but the answers lie inside Marcel's head.

And how can he tell what is significant when he remembers every detail of every moment of his entire life?