Memories of Midnight

To understand this book, it helps to remember where the previous one ended. In The Other Side of Midnight, the American Catherine marries Larry Douglas, a charming and unfaithful pilot. Larry gets involved with Noelle Page, a famous French actress and the lover of Constantin Demiris, one of the richest men in Greece. The two of them try to drown Catherine in a lake at night so they can be free.

Catherine disappears, everyone believes she is dead, and Larry and Noelle go on trial in Athens. Guided by a brilliant lawyer, Napoleon Chotas, hired by Demiris, they agree to plead guilty, thinking they will get a light sentence. They get the death penalty. Demiris, betrayed by his lover, watches from a distance as the revenge he himself plotted plays out.

Memories of Midnight starts right there, with a secret only Demiris knows: Catherine is not dead. And if she is alive, the firing squad execution of two people convicted of killing her becomes a scandal capable of bringing down the most powerful man in the country.

Catherine recovers in a convent of nuns, remembering almost nothing. She knows her own name and little more. She has nightmares about dark water, feels fear without knowing what of, and lives like someone who showed up at a party halfway through and doesn't recognize anyone.

In time, she asks to leave and find out who she is. Demiris, who watches everything from afar, allows it. Little by little, images come back: the husband, the other woman, the night at the lake, the attempted drowning. And Catherine tells these memories precisely to him, the man who presents himself as her protector.

The amnesia works as the engine of the suspense. The reader knows more than the heroine, and every time she trusts someone you get that sinking feeling of watching a friend sign a lease without reading the fine print.

Demiris is the center of the plot. A shipping tycoon with companies spread around the world, he treats people like pieces on a game board. To him, a living Catherine is a threat: if she puts the pieces together, she may realize that the executed couple was convicted of a death that never happened.

His solution is elegant and cold. Instead of making her vanish right away, he offers help, a job, and distance. He sends Catherine to work at one of his offices in London. She sees a generous benefactor; he sees someone who must be kept under control until the right moment.

It's the kind of kindness we know from real life: the boss who pays for the company barbecue and then demands loyalty in everything, or the neighborhood loan shark who lends with a smile. The favor comes first, the bill comes later.