A Madness So Discreet

Reviewed by: Sheila Dube - Springvale Public Library, Springvale, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: November 16, 2015

Review

This dark, murder mystery is set at the turn of the nineteenth century in America, where asylums were dumping grounds for young women who did not follow society's rules of behavior. Grace Mae, the daughter of a Senator, finds herself a patient in an unethically run Boston asylum because she was impregnated by her father. When she loses the baby due to violent treatment methods and subscribed to the dungeon, the traveling doctor Thornhollow, who performs lobotomies on selected violent patients, identifies her quick intelligence and photographic memory. He provides her a way to escape to a safer asylum in Ohio as long as she takes on a new identity that includes scarring her face, acting as a mute inpatient and becoming his secret assistant as he dabbles in profiling a local serial killer that has been killing women with ether. The darkness of the asylum setting is juxtaposed with the outwardly civil society that covers up the "madness" of family sexual abuse so discreetly. As Grace becomes interwoven in the fabric of this new life, strong friendships and loyalties develop as the cast of sympathetic, yet flawed, characters make justifiable decisions that are labeled "mad" and criminal by mainstream society as they respond to their individual imprisonments. Some descriptions of treatment, sexual abuse and reactions to abuse are brutal. Fans of historical thrillers and psychological crime dramas will enjoy the lingering effects of this haunting story.

Overall Book Score: excellent