HarperCollins, 2001

Laurie King´s latest novel has nothing at all to do with her Sherlock Holmes adaptions.

It starts as a psychological study of a seriously disturbed middle-aged woman, Rae Newborn, who fled from a clinic to a lonely island off the west coast of Canada, where she hopes to find her inner sense of balance again by rebuilding an old house there. She is haunted by panic attacks, manic depressions and imaginary voices and pursuers. King makes the reader live inside this woman´s brain, which is really gripping.
The very painful process of healing begins, helped by the hard physical work of building. Of course, the island community around her enter the stage helping or hindering her way back to normal life.

Then , unfortunately, King remembers, that she is a crime author, and the story twists and turns in a quite unbecoming way.