Donna Freed was six years old when her sister casually revealed that she and her siblings were all adopted, a subject her parents refused to discuss. The revelation fractured Donna's sense of identity. The death of her tricky yet treasured adoptive mother died left Donna feeling exposed, her life un-witnessed without a mother to look over her. When she became a mother herself, Donna felt compelled to track down her birth mother. Trawling through records of the now notorious Louise Wise Adoption Service, many previously redacted, she uncovered an explosive and salacious story, one of the biggest true crime investigations to grip the USA in the late 1960s.

A powerful, poignant and pacey adoption memoir which reads like a thriller. When her adoptive mother died in 2009 Donna Freed set out to track down her birth mother. What she discovered was truly shocking - she was the daughter of a pair of infamous con artists, at the heart of one of the biggest true crime stories to grip the USA in the 1960s. Previously redacted records from the infamous *Louise Wise Services in New York revealed that Donna's mother (27, Jewish and single), her father (40, Catholic, married with 4 children), had hatched a plan to defraud an insurance company and run off to Spain to raise Donna. Further investigation revealed that in 1967, Donna's mother, Mira Lindenmaier, faked her own death in a drowning accident off City Island in the Bronx for the double indemnity insurance money. Donna loved her tricky, unconventional adoptive mother, but was now keen to meet her birth mother and find out how and why her parents abandoned her. How would she feel towards Mira, her 'real' Mum. How has becoming a mother herself impacted on her feelings towards her two mothers? Gripping and fast-paced, this extraordinary memoir is also incredibly moving tackling fundamental questions about motherhood and identity, nature vs nurture.