The identity of killer and corpse are left unknown for the bulk of this story, detailing a difficult mother-daughter relationship exacerbated by the close quarters enforced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Her excuse, given days later, was that she’d been terribly ill (too ill to make a phone call?), but the first responders had quoted her as saying, “It wasn’t an emergency. How had she lived with the stench? And why? Most people, if they were going to report their own crime, would do it right after the fact–not wait two weeks while living with the corpse. A miasma of decay had wafted out like a poisonous cloud, making the uniformed officers gag. She was contagious”–her greeting as she’d opened the door to let the police in. Zoje Stage’s latest psychological thriller opens on chaos, as a doctor at a psychiatric hospital reads over the dossier of his latest patient:
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