You Know What You Did

A visual artist unravels after the death of her mother in Nguyen’s exhilarating debut. Painter Annie Shaw appears to be living the American dream with her renowned journalist husband, Duncan, and daughter, Tabitha, in the Virginia countryside. The facade starts to crack when Annie discovers her elderly Vietnamese refugee mother’s dead body among her hoarded goods in Annie’s carriage house. In the weeks that follow, the emotionally fragile Annie gradually loses her grip on reality. Medication that once kept her obsessive-compulsive disorder under control proves no match for her spiraling thoughts, and she starts to see vengeful visions of her mother’s ghost, who torments Annie with the horrors she experienced during the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, the ever-supportive Duncan is put to the test when Annie first becomes a suspect in the death of her art patron, Byrdie Fenton, then turns up at the scene of another murder with no memory of how she arrived there. Might she be unconsciously enacting the violent, compulsive thoughts that plague her? Braiding together hair-raising psychological suspense and poignant study of war’s intergenerational trauma, Nguyen adds depth to the familiar setup of the unreliable, mentally ill heroine. Lisa Unger and Tess Gerritsen fans, take note. Agent: Stefanie Lieberman, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Apr.)