Review

DeWitt Medical School has a drug problem. In recent years, students have overdosed, a history that students are very aware of. This year’s newbies just know they’d never do drugs, even to cope with the ultra-high pressure anatomy class that’s the center of their first-year fears. Heather is the first we spend time with. She’s trying so hard in the class but can’t seem to succeed. She sees her roommate hanging out and having a good time; surely she can’t be getting good grades from tough Dr. Conlon? As the chapters fly by, the pressure increases and we meet other students, each with pressures to bear in addition to the anatomy hell they’re enduring: a father who died too soon; tuition bills that necessitate a sketchy job that turns out much worse than expected; a famous surgeon to live up to. When the students start to crack and behave in increasingly unhinged ways, readers will be rapt and shocked by the twists revealed. Medicine is here a much more prominent element than in McFadden’s previous books, but as a former physician, she has the background to back it up. What’s no different is the stellar dark psychological suspense and characterization. Get this on your TBR.—Henrietta Thornton

It’s everyone’s worst nightmare: waking up in a strange room, with injuries, a new name and hair color, and being told by an undercover cop that you are in a witness-protection program. Academic criminologist April can’t remember anything that has happened for the last several months. All Hollister, the cop, can fill her in on is that bad folks are looking for her, and if she can’t remember what how occurred before she was brought into the ER with a bullet in her head, the case against her attackers won’t fly. Bit by bit, conflicting memories come back—a fiancé, Chris, who secretly put a tracking device in her purse; a room full of bodies and red threads coming down on her; her Aunt Dahlia, who raised April after her parents and brother were killed in a car accident. Quinn (The Bridesmaid) spools out small details that build the story and keep readers guessing about Chris’s possible involvement with the mob, April’s mysterious injuries, and secrets about her family. As the trial grows near, the pressure for memories to return mounts, as does the speed and pace of the book. Triggered by flashbacks, April’s recollections begin to unravel and a desperate cross-country race to get to the evidence ensues. Quinn has built a breathless cinematic psychological thriller that leans into dissociative identity disorder, with revenge and subterfuge on the front burners.—Dodie Ownes