Jessica Farris signs up for a psychological study that seeks women aged 18 – 32 for a study on ethics and mortality. Jess needs the money and it offers a generous payment and anonymity is guaranteed, so Jess thinks this is an answer to some of her financial problems. Jess thinks she will just have to answer a few questions to collect her money and go. But as Subject 52, she discovers this ethics study is much more intense, delving into her personal life, until the mysterious Dr Shields knows all her secrets intimately, including the guilt that has been part of her life since her younger sister Becky’s accident. The sessions become so intense that Jess feels like Dr Shields can read her mind.
But when sessions become outings in the real world, with Dr Shields telling Jess how to dress and act, and isolated from her family and friends, Jess becomes increasingly paranoid and worried about what and who she can trust in her life.
I love the by-line on the cover ‘She’s Lying to Know the Truth’ as the more you read this thrilling book, the more you begin to understand what this means. But it doesn’t take long for Jess to be caught in a web of deceit and obsession, and soon she is in very real danger.
An Anonymous Girl is a psychological thriller that is full of twists and turns, that is clever and page-turning. A class act, with great characterisation and true suspense. The authors also wrote The Wife Between Us, another fine novel, and I can’t wait to see what they come up with next. They are proving to be masters of the intelligent suspense novel.
Reviewer: Karen McMillan
Macmillan, RRP $34.99