An Anonymous Girl

By Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

St. Martins     2019

384 pages     Thriller

Jessica Farris is a young woman trying to make it in New York. She is a makeup artist, doing in-home makeup sessions. Through deception, she gets involved in a morality study that pays $500 at the university. The researcher is a gorgeous, but rather creepy, Dr. Lydia Shields, who immediately recruits Jessica to further study and social experiments. Flattered to be considered and lured by significant money, Jess agrees to participate. Is the university study real or is it just a cover Dr. Shields is using to find a young woman to groom to do her will?

The story is told in the first person from Jess’s perspective, and in the second person by Dr. Shields, a chapter at a time. This a very clever, and disconcerting, tactic, by the way. The reader immediately realizes that Dr. Shields is up to no good and hopes that Jess will figure this out. The doctor-patient dynamic is at play, with Dr. Shields generally having the upper hand, but Jess is a good adversary, and the reader intuitively knows that Jess will be able to take care of herself. Jess is quite a believable character, scarred and flawed, but also eager for a chance at life. I’m not so sure about Dr. Shields. You will have to draw your own conclusions.

Like Hendricks and Pekkanen’s other book, The Wife Between Us, which I read last year, there is a stressful dynamic between two women—an older but wiser, and a younger and maybe vulnerable. There is also a philandering husband and a lot of secrets. There are too many twists and turns to enumerate here, but suffice it to say, it is a page turner. The reviewer in the New York Times says that “the authors know exactly how to play on their characters’ love of danger to bring them to the brink of disaster—and dare them to jump off.”

My review of The Wife Between Us discusses how these two authors work together to construct their novels. That is, in itself, a reason to read their thrillers. One of the strengths of their novels, I think, is that there are not too many characters to sort through. Additionally, the “I did, she did” format helps to make everything move very quickly.

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Lucky for me, we are in the midst of a huge winter storm (today’s high temperature is -10 degrees). So, I was able to sit and read all yesterday afternoon in front of the fireplace. I went to bed with about 85% of the book done. After tossing and turning for about 45 minutes, I finally turned on the light, retrieved my Kindle, finished it off, and then drifted immediately off to sleep. Everyone got their just desserts!