Every now and again, I find it good to throw a thriller into the mix, amongst the literary fiction and memoirs. The pace, the lack of detailed and complicated character development, the twists – this is a different type of reading than what I usually do. The pages fly by faster and I get engrossed in finding out how it will end.
I read Sarah Pekkanen’s latest thriller, The Locked Ward, in preparation for a Q&A with the author at Wonderland Books. I’ve read other books by Pekkanen before and have enjoyed how smart and suspenseful they are. The Locked Ward didn’t disappoint. Georgia, a wealthy Southern woman accused of brutally killing Annabelle, the biological daughter of her adoptive parents, is locked up in a psychiatric ward of a hospital and asks her lawyer to track down her twin sister Amanda, who didn’t even know Georgia existed. Georgia manages to communicate to Amanda that she is innocent and needs her to help get her released. Amanda then enters Georgia’s privileged world, trying to figure out whether her sister is telling the truth and how to set her free. Pekkanen alternates between first and second person as she shifts perspective between Georgia and Amanda, which effectively communicates Georgia’s lack of autonomy and Amanda’s feeling out of place as she navigates into her sister’s life. This was a good ride, quick and exhilarating.