Tell Me Who You Are

The NYPD suspects a psychiatrist of abducting a journalist who publicly denigrated her in the cunning latest from Luna (the Alice Vega series). Ellen Garcia, a staff writer at Brooklyn Bound magazine, has been missing for three days when new patient Nelson Schack tells Dr. Caroline Strange he’s thinking of killing someone she knows. Nelson’s admission isn’t specific enough to warrant a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality to inform the police—but then two detectives come knocking on Caroline’s door. Two months earlier, Ellen included Caroline on a list of the worst doctors in Brooklyn; in turn, Caroline sent a letter to the editor of Brooklyn Bound, evincing a grudge against the reporter that now resembles a motive. To exonerate herself, Caroline sells out Nelson to the police and launches her own inquiry into Ellen’s disappearance. Luna relays the bulk of the tale in Caroline’s snarky first-person, present-tense narration (“This is the moment, if I were the star of my own reality show, when I’d cast my eyes above the camera at the producer and mouth, Get me the fuck out of here”), which successfully distracts from the plot’s preponderance of coincidences. Chapters that check in on Ellen, who’s been taken captive, and flash back to Caroline’s childhood, casting doubt on her candor, ramp up the tension. Lisa Gardner fans, take note. Agent: Mark Falkin, Falkin Literary. (June)