Prodigal Son

Peter McDowell has spent years building a career as a star investment banker, and then a stock market crash takes it all within days: his money, his property, his job. His marriage cracks under the strain as well, and in a way he cannot mend. With nowhere else to go, he returns to the lakeside cottage he inherited from his parents, who left most of their modest estate to his twin brother, Michael.

Michael is everything a small town could want in a neighbor. He is a much-loved doctor, a devoted family man, and a pillar of the community who gives of himself without seeking anything back. Peter alone knows how Michael manipulated their parents when the two were boys, and how that manipulation drove Peter out of the family. He dreads facing his brother again, so he is surprised when their reunion turns out to be warm and genuine.

Then Peter begins reading his late mother's journals, and doubts creep in. Is the man everyone admires truly who he seems, or is something far darker hidden behind the kindness? Peter cannot tell whether he is imagining the worst or confronting a truth too frightening to accept. As suspicion hardens into fear, he races to learn the truth, whatever the risk to himself.

What he uncovers will change both brothers, their children, and the whole town. Danielle Steel's novel pits two very different twins against each other and keeps asking which one is good and which one is not, as the answer shifts again and again.