CARRIE'S SECRET

A teenage psychiatric patient bears a terrible burden in this whodunit set in the 1980s.

One year after the sudden disappearance of her older sister, Wendy, 15-year-old Carrie Genesen has lost interest in school and attempted suicide. Her parents, already reeling from the loss of their elder child, can’t communicate with her, so they place her in the Danton Morris Institute, a psychiatric facility. From the outset, readers know that someone on the hospital staff knows a lot about Carrie and her sibling. When Carrie later survives a fall from a fourth-story window onto pavement, it’s initially assumed that she jumped—but when evidence of foul play emerges, everyone in the facility comes under suspicion. The story unfolds from a variety of points of view, including that of the perpetrator, who’s unidentified. One of the psychiatric aides, Jared Appleton, has his own cache of secrets. He has a history of drug and alcohol abuse, and he harbors an enormous crush on a fellow staff member and ambivalence toward his live-in girlfriend. The tension in this story is consistently high, and the conclusion is surprising. When the author focuses on the activities of the staff and patients in the institution, the book is compelling and relatable. However, several chapters are devoted to descriptions by the person who’d kidnapped Wendy, which are unnecessarily explicit. “It never works out when I get a girl the ‘normal’ way. They don’t satisfy me….I need a fresh young girl and I need total control to get what I want.” The rants of a sexual predator and depictions of his victim’s torture are definitely disturbing, but they don’t offer readers any useful insights.

An often engaging mystery, but certain characters are hard to stomach.