POSTTRAUMATIC

In Icelandic author Simonar’s thriller, set largely in the Washington, D.C., area, a renowned doctor encounters international conspiracies, political intrigue, ruthless murders, and billion-dollar deals.

At 32 years of age, Dr. Caroline Glyn is already a world authority on malignant cells, and her research may be getting closer to identifying a cure for cancer. But her personal life is unraveling; she’s a widow and single mother after her doctor husband died of a brain tumor, and now she’s faced with mounting debt and the very real chance that her research funding will end soon. While dropping off her 5-year-old daughter, Mary, at a prestigious school in Georgetown, she meets the father of Mary’s friend: an elderly Russian man who goes by the name Rykov and says that he works for a multinational trading company. He and Glyn unexpectedly bond, due to their shared feelings of loss; his wife also died from cancer. When Glyn returns to pick up Mary later that afternoon, however, the mother and daughter witness the brutal killing of Rykov and his child in an apparent hit—but before the old man dies, he grabs Glyn’s hand and inexplicably transfers his essence into her consciousness. Soon, Glyn, through conversations with FBI Special Agent Carl Smith, discovers that Rykov was the head of the original Russian Mafia and was one of the most powerful, ruthless criminal masterminds in the world. Various groups maneuver to silence Glyn—she was the only one who saw Rykov’s killers, and, as a result, Mary is abducted. With her daughter missing—and her sanity seemingly fragmenting as an infamous criminal’s thoughts and memories blend with her own—Glyn sets out on a quest for vengeance.

Over the course of this novel, Simonar presents a thriller tale that’s absolutely relentless in its pacing. Indeed, he makes sure that the action is virtually nonstop from the first page to the last, while also establishing a dark crime fiction tone that can be decidedly brutal at times. However, it’s the clarity and purity of the writing, which is courageously uninhibited in style and complemented by forceful imagery, that makes this novel so compulsively readable throughout. For example, here’s a representative passage, after Rykov is killed in front of Glyn: “She drifted, eerily watching the blood seep out of the old man. It collected in a puddle that slowly circled the crushed cherry blossoms the girls had dropped on the asphalt. In curious detachment, Caroline marveled at how beautifully the two colors mingled, dark heavy red against the fleeting pink of a Washington spring.” Readers may have two minor criticisms with the work, however. First, there is the fact that the story never adequately explains how Rykov’s essence was transferred to Glyn, which some may find bothersome; and second, there are some occasional distracting errors in grammar over the course of the book. However, these elements are not likely to hinder readers’ overall enjoyment of this Beltway thriller.

A violent page-turner with compelling imagery that will leave readers breathless.