Scarecrow Has A Gun by Michael Paul Kozlowsky

 

On the first night Sean and Gina leave their baby, Nike, with a babysitter, Gina is killed in their apartment.  Sean was there but knocked out.  The police have never solved the case, even now sixteen years later.  Sean is now with another woman who he has a daughter with.  But he can't move past the grief and uncertainty of that night.  If only he could remember.

At work, he is in a strange group.   His boss, a business entrepreneur has created a 'Widowers Club' as he himself has been widowed.  Every year there is a competition between the men in this club and the winner advances through the company.  This year Sean wins and his prize is a new technology.  It's called a Memory Palace and it replays a person's memories.

Now Sean is sure he will be able to find the answers he has wanted for so long.  But that memory doesn't come up at first.  He relives his childhood and his time with his own parents.  He relives his courtship of Gina and that of his current partner.  He revisits the birth of his son and realizes that what is shown on the memory palace doesn't match his own memories.  Now he starts to see more contradictions between what he has always believed to be true about his past and the reality.  Will he find the truth?

This is an interesting look at the science of memories and how two different people might remember the same event very differently.  What is reality?  What is truth?  I listened to this novel and the narrator really brought Sean to life, his voice exactly how I imagined Sean would sound.  As Sean delves deeper into his past life, he sees the way forward to living the rest of it.  This book is recommended for thriller readers.