My first book by this author was The Craftsman, which came out in the fall of 2018. That story blew me away, and after that I made it a point to watch for new books by Bolton. Thanks go to Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

The title is a double entendre: our protagonist, Felicity, is avoiding someone, and she is certain he’s found her. Since her field is glaciology, she decides to travel to Antarctica with an expedition. He’ll never find her there, and even if he should, he’d be at a distinct disadvantage to her. Those are her stomping grounds. Thus, she is about to split.

The catch, however, is that her superiors are uncertain she is mentally stable enough for this journey. She keeps missing time; there are whole blocks, an hour, an afternoon, a weekend, when she doesn’t recall where she was or what she is doing. She finds evidence that she has done things she does not remember doing. As we perch in her psychologist’s office, veritable flies on the wall observing her therapy sessions, it soon becomes clear what the issue is, or at least it did to me; and thus, the second meaning of the title.

One of the things I appreciate about this story is that there is no coy effort on Bolton’s part to deflect the reader’s awareness of what ails Felicity. I would have liked at some point to see or hear the correct name used; Felicity has a dissociative disorder. But this is a small quibble.

What I appreciate the very most is that Bolton doesn’t sensationalize this disorder, but sticks closely to the truth. Why not? The real thing is dramatic enough all by itself to keep our interest. And when I realized where we were headed with this I regretted, if just for a brief while, having signed on, because this topic cuts close to the bone for me. I have a close family member with this disorder, and hearing the voices of people that were, and yet were not, my relative’s voice is one of the most horrifying experiences of my life. After a few weeks of it, I had to pull back and ask to only be phoned by the dominant person in my relative’s body, the one that I, like the rest of the family, was acquainted with. And so, once I decided to continue reading this book, I listened closely for inaccuracies in its telling, using my relative as a baseline (a sample size of one, which I’ll admit is sketchy,) and I found none. Most readers won’t have this experience for comparison.

Although the mental condition is revealed, bit by bit, fairly early in the story, there are still surprises aplenty, particularly with regard to the stalker. The climax is a bit farfetched, but nevertheless this is a solid job, and Bolton gets big props from me for dealing with a difficult premise accurately and fairly.

I flipped back and forth between the printed review copy and the audio version I scooped from Seattle Bibliocommons. Both versions are well done and easy to follow, so you can’t go wrong. Recommended to those that love a good psychological thriller, and that have no triggers that might conflict with your enjoyment.