Incarnate - review

Incarnate

by Josh Stolberg

Emily Bestler Books/Atria

Based in the small Alaskan town of Jarvis, Dr. Kim Patterson is a brilliant psychiatrist with a maverick approach to her profession, but her flouting of hospital rules isn’t appreciated by her superiors. Kim is walking a fine line between residency and dismissal when she encounters nineteen-year-old Scarlett Hascall in the psychiatric ward. Immediately Kim sees Scarlett’s condition isn’t being correctly diagnosed: She has multiple personalities fighting to control her, and Kim can’t resist doing her best to help the girl.

Across town Detective Zack Trainor is dealing with a missing person case. Isabel ‘Izzi’ Wilcox went missing some days ago. Her lowlife boyfriend looks a likely candidate for Izzi’s disappearance, but as Zack investigates things don’t seem so clear cut. When Zack discovers a link to Kim’s patient, he and she clash over the right way to proceed with Scarlett’s case – but Scarlett is full of surprises. Other dead and missing people from the town begin to emerge through Scarlett’s person, and Kim and Zack realize something seriously strange is going on. Is Scarlett the world’s most cunning psychopath, or is she really channeling the dead? Kim and Zack find they have to rely on each other as they pursue the case all the way to its shocking conclusion.

Incarnate has a great character partnership between off-beat but likable Kim Patterson and the more straight-laced Zack Trainor. The small world of Jarvis comes to life under Stolberg’s touch in a story that grips all the way to the end.