Suspicious Minds

When Liz Zahavi, the protagonist of this taut psychological thriller from Mark (The Mausoleum), learns she may be suffering from borderline personality disorder, she decides to seek treatment from a therapist licensed in dialectical behavior therapy in another part of England. She gets lost en route to her appointment, and drives her car into a stone wall, losing consciousness. Jude Cullen, a farmer who lives nearly off the grid, rescues Liz and takes care of her. Over the weeks that follow, Liz becomes convinced that Jude might be the perfect partner for her and an escape from every critical person back home. Then Liz finds out that Jude had a wife who died mysteriously four years earlier, and she comes to wonder whether she can trust Jude, or if she can even trust herself. Lyrical prose (“Here, in the charcoal depths of winter, the forest has been mercilessly disrobed”) helps compensate for some repetitive passages. Though Liz is more a disorder personified than a person with a disorder, readers will still care about her fate. Those with a taste for the gothic will be rewarded. Agent: Oli Munson, A.M. Heath (U.K.). (Dec.)