Brain Damage
2016
- american literature
- thriller
- mystery
- fiction
- mystery thriller
- psychological thriller
- suspense
- crime
The story
After years of hard work, Dr. Charly McKenna finally has it all. Prosperous career as a dermatologist? Check. Spacious apartment overlooking Central Park? Check. Handsome lawyer husband? Double check. Then one night, a bullet rips through the right side of her skull and she loses everything. As Charly struggles to recover from her brain injury, she begins to realize that the events of that fateful night are trapped in the damaged right side of her brain. Now she must put the jigsaw pieces together to discover the identity of the man who tried to kill her... before he finishes the job he started.
What it’s like
Clipped, fast-moving prose in short chapters, with a brisk, conversational voice that stays close to a woman piecing her own life back together. The mood is sleek Manhattan polish gone wrong: a Central Park view, a tidy upscale apartment, and a sense of comfort slowly curdling into unease. Its tone is tense and propulsive, a page-turner built on clues, doubt and escalating dread rather than atmosphere for its own sake. The emotional register is anxious and claustrophobic, with the protagonist's disorientation and fear about who she can trust driving the momentum. Violence is present and jarring, mostly in a shooting and its aftermath, with a few scenes of frightening menace, but it is not lingered over in gore. It suits a late-night read when you want to stay up until the next twist, a long flight, or a weekend binge with no need to hold a complicated plot in your head. It is for readers who want a fast, accessible psychological thriller with a strong hook and a steady stream of revelations, and who are comfortable with suspense and moderate violence.
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