It’s difficult to believe the complex plotting and assured voice in All You Took From Me (Transit Lounge Publishing 2024) is from debut writer, Lisa Kenway. This novel reads as a more advanced writer would present a psychological thriller, from the ease of dialogue to the complicated threads of the mystery to the confident research that informs the narrative.
The tragedy of a single vehicle accident has left Clare Carpenter with no husband and no memory. The book opens when she wakes in the dim nightlight of a hospital room, familiar to her because of her work as an anaesthetist but also blurry and confused, because she can’t remember why she is lying in a bed in her own hospital. It quickly becomes apparent that she has sustained massive injuries, including memory loss, and that her husband has been killed in the crash. The great, gaping holes in her memory are spine-tingling and frightening from the first page, not only because of her natural anxious trepidation about not knowing what’s happening in her life, but also because of the strange man she sees skulking about her ward. He seems menacing, but is her imagination in overdrive? Is she hallucinating? Is the man even there at all?
Clare doesn’t take well to the role of patient rather than doctor. And as the extent of her injuries and the repercussions become apparent, her position as a medical specialist appears to be in jeopardy. The situation is worse when the police turn up to question her, not once, as might be expected, but multiple times, to the point that Clare believes they suspect her of some sort of foul play, or at least withholding knowledge about the accident. But once again, is this her imagination and her fractured memory playing games? Jumping at shadows? Seeing things that just aren’t there?
While allowed to rejoin the staff, with special considerations given her head trauma, and reduced responsibilities, Clare’s antennae continue to tell her something is ‘off,’ and her paranoia gets worse, not better. Her psychiatrist tries to help (or does she?), even attempting hypnosis, and her best friend Priya seems to have distanced herself from Clare for no reason she can comprehend.
Everything leads back to the love of her life, her husband Ray, and the life they led together. As the novel progresses, Clare catches hints and clues that her memory of that life and the reality may not be in sync. And as her memory returns to her in snatches of fractured snapshots, it becomes obvious that she clearly doesn’t remember Ray as well as she thought, that their relationship was not what she presumed, and that there may be actions of her own that she has relegated to the black hole of her mind.
She becomes particularly interested in a certain anaesthetic drug that she believes might allow her to access her missing memories, and some of the most interesting aspects of the book are her ethical and legal queries about using this drug, the problems in procuring it, the dangers of using it unsupervised, and whether it is doing her more harm than good. Kenway’s other job as an anaesthetist informs this aspect of the writing and research.
As with any good psychological thriller, the count of suspects, motives and victims rises and Clare must wrestle with the secrets her husband took to his grave, the uncomfortable and vaguely threatening stranger she is convinced is following her, and the bizarre facts she uncovers about Ray’s involvement in a cult-like medieval fight club. How does everything join together? Has Clare herself done something terrible that she can’t remember? Or was her husband not the dream man she remembers, but an abusive and secretive fraud who kept most of his life hidden from her, even when they were married?
Lots of tension, twists and unanswered questions move the plot along at a cracking pace, and the reader is as invested as Clare in finding answers. The resolution is shocking and while the narrative did begin to become a little unwieldy and unlikely, Kenway manages to pull it all together in the end. Clare’s distinct voice certainly lifts the novel into another realm – her humour and determination and sardonic attitude get us onside with her immediately and have us hoping and cheering her on.