After a 20-year absence, Doctor Victor Hoppe returns to a small town in Belgium, much to the interest of its other inhabitants. Their curiosity is stoked by the doctor leaving behind an acclaimed academic posting in embryology and by the fact that he arrives with triplets, each sharing the same characteristics as the doctor – a hare lip and red hair. When asked what happened to the mother, the doctor responds ‘The children do not have a mother, they never had.’ The doctor hires a local woman to look after the infants and it is through her eyes that we begin to realise that something isn’t quite right, with the children or with the doctor.

In the tradition of Miller’s Ingenious Pain and Suskind’s Perfume, this gothic, thought-provoking tale explores the murky recesses between science and religion, rationalism and insanity, morality and ethics. The Angel Maker takes us on a frightening exploration of just how far one man is willing to push scientific advancement to better god.