Review of "Have You Seen Me?" A Novel of Suspense by Kate White

One morning personal finance journalist Ally Linden arrives at Greenbacks, the company she works for, to get a big surprise.

Damien Howe, Greenbacks' owner (and Ally's one-time flame) is bewildered, and tells Ally she hasn't worked at Greenbacks for the past five years.



Ally is taken to the hospital, where she's seen by a psychiatrist. Ally slowly recalls that she now works as a freelance personal finance expert - writing a monthly column, giving talks, and hosting a weekly podcast.



Ally also recalls she's married to a successful lawyer called Hugh;



she lives in a luxury apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side;



she has a best friend named Gabby; and more.



However, Ally CAN'T REMEMBER what she did for the past few days.

The hospital psychiatrist determines that Abby experienced a dissociative fugue state that caused her to lose her recent memories. The doctor also says Ally might experience more such dissociative states in the future.



When Ally's husband Hugh takes her home from the hospital, he admits Ally hasn't been home for the past couple of days. Hugh says he wasn't alarmed because he and Ally had been arguing about having children, and he thought Ally was taking time to cool off. Hugh suggests the argument about kids might have caused Ally's dissociative state, and it does seem like a possible trigger.



To try to avoid future episodes of memory loss, Ally delves into her past with the therapist she's been seeing for some time.



Ally recalls a traumatic episode at the age of nine, when she took a shortcut home from school and found the body of a dead child. Over the following days, Ally remembers more and more about this incident, which she's been suppressing for most of her life.



Besides wanting to figure out what caused the fugue state, Ally wants to know what she did for the past 48 hours or so. The presence of blood-stained tissues in Ally's pocket lead her to think someone may have been hurt (or worse), and she wants to know where she's been sleeping and eating and things like that.

So Ally hires a private detective to look into her recent whereabouts. The PI turns up some interesting information, and Ally slowly starts to put things together.



Then things then take an unexpected turn, and that's all I can say without spoilers.

For a (supposedly) savvy woman, Ally is a bit naive about some of the people around her. Ally eventually wises up, though, and the novel's denouement is surprising in some ways, and predictable in others.

This is an engaging story, not too deep, but a decent read for suspense fans.



I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Cynthia Farrell, who does a fine job.

Rating: 3 stars