Part of Joseph O'Loughlin
First published 2012
Late one night, a teenage girl named Sienna appears at Joe O'Loughlin's front door. She is shaking, incoherent, and drenched in blood. Sienna is a troubled friend of Joe's daughter, and what she brings with her will pull Joe into something far darker than he expects. Police find Sienna's father, a decorated former cop, murdered in his own home. Lab results confirm the blood on Sienna is his. She claims she remembers nothing. Joe is a psychologist, and he is not in great shape himself. His marriage is falling apart and his daughter has shut him out. He takes on Sienna's case partly because he believes she needs help and partly because he hopes proving it will repair things with his daughter. But Sienna stays locked away inside herself, unable to grieve or explain. Investigators move toward charging her. Joe suspects there is something else going on, something buried and dangerous. A real person, capable of savage violence, who will strike again if anyone gets too close.
Genres: drama, mystery, crime, adult-fiction, thriller, psychological-thriller
Vibes: dark, emotionally-intense, gritty, psychological, suspenseful
Tropes: dark-secrets, mystery-unraveling, personal-stakes, unreliable-narrator
Period: contemporary
448 pages · Paperback · Little, Brown Paperbacks
Content warnings: mental-illness, murder, violence