The Memory Collector
“What’s going on?” Kanan said.
“We’re taking you to the hospital,” Jo said.
Puzzlement. “Why?”
Slowly, Jo said, “Do you recall what I told you a minute ago?”
“No. Who are you?”
The paramedic wrapped her stethoscope around her neck. “Man.”
The cop braced his hand against the wall of the ambulance. “What is it?”
Jo felt grim. “Amnesia.”
She looked at Kanan, thinking: and not the good kind.
Forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett’s specialty is the psychological autopsy—an investigation into a person’s life to determine whether a death was natural, accidental, suicide, or homicide. When Jo is asked to do a psychological autopsy on a living person—one with a suspect memory who can’t be trusted to participate in his own medical care—she knows all her skills will be put to the test.
Jo is called to the scene of an aircraft inbound from London to help deal with a passenger who is behaving erratically. She figures out that Ian Kanan has anterograde amnesia, and can’t form new memories. Jo finds herself racing to save a patient who can walk and talk and yet can’t help figure out just what happened to him. For every cryptic clue he is able to drag up from his memory, Jo has to sift through a dozen nonsensical statements. Worse, Kanan is a former mercenary who may be planning revenge against the people he thinks caused his injury.
When Kanan disappears and other passengers on the same flight start showing the same symptoms, all clues point to a high-tech poison that has the potential to contaminate the city of San Francisco. To prevent a disaster, Jo will have to get deeper into the life of a patient than she ever has before, hoping the truth will emerge from the fog of his mind in time to save the city—and herself.
“Bad guys, betrayal, and a beastly technology propel Edgar finalist Gardiner’s heart-stopping plot. Mystery fans are sure to embrace this whip-smart novelist who gets better with every book.”
Booklist (starred review)
