The Book of Guilt (2025) is the 9th novel by New Zealand writer Caterine Chidgey.

The Book of Guilt is speculative historical fiction set in 1979 in an alternative England, one in which WWII ended in 1943 and in which a collaboration across Europe has progressed biological & medical science informed by research that includes experiments in Nazi extermination camps.

Identical triplets Vincent, William & Lawrence are the last 3 occupants of a New Forest children’s home, part of the government’s Sycamore Scheme. Part of the boys’ daily routine is to take pills etc to protect themselves from a mysterious illness. The 13-year-old boys are promised that if they do beat “the Bug”, they could end up at the Big House in Margate, a place where all the healthy kids go.

As the governments starts to shut down the Sycamore Scheme, the triplets begin to question everything they have been told.