Turn of Mind

Turn of Mind
by Alice LaPlante
Atlantic Monthly Press, 2011. 307 pgs. Mystery

Is the perfect murder the one you can't forget or the one you can't remember? Dr. Jennifer White, a brilliant former surgeon in the early grips of Alzheimer's, is suspected of murdering her best friend, Amanda. Amanda's body was found brutally disfigured — with four of her fingers cut off in a precise, surgical manner. As the police pursue their investigation and Jennifer searches her own mind for fractured clues to Amanda's death, a portrait emerges of an uncompromising, unsentimental woman, who is struggling to understand the world around her as her mind deteriorates more every day.

Although this book was well-written and quite engrossing, it’s a lot of work to get through the haze of Dr. White’s deteriorating mind to figure out who she is, who her family and friends are, and what her life has been like. Even when you feel like you do understand her, she’s not a sympathetic character or one whose motives are clear. The author knows how to write not only a good mystery, but also an interesting study of what it would be like to be inside the head of a person suffering from dementia. The mystery plotline is only second to the experience of immersing yourself in the mind of a person whose life is rapidly falling apart.

JC