Title: Rabbit Hole by Mark Billingham
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery
Length: 400 pages
Book Rating: B+
Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley
Summary:
A gripping standalone thriller from the “first-rate British crime writer” and internationally bestselling author of the Tom Thorne novels (The Washington Post).
Alice Armitage is a police officer. Or she was.
Or perhaps she just imagines she was.
Whatever the truth is, following a debilitating bout of PTSD, self-medication with drink and drugs, and a psychotic breakdown, Alice is now a long-term patient in an acute psychiatric ward.
When one of her fellow patients is murdered, Alice becomes convinced that she has identified the killer and that she can catch them. Ignored by the police, she begins her own investigation. But when her prime suspect becomes the second victim, Alice’s life begins to unravel still further as she realizes that she cannot trust anyone, least of all herself.
Review:
Rabbit Hole by Mark Billingham is a clever mystery with a likeable, albeit unreliable, narrator.
Alice “Al” Armitage is the narrator of this brilliant mystery which takes place in the Shackleton Unit’s Fleet Ward. Al is a former Met detective constable who began suffering from PTSD following the shocking incident on the Job. Using dubious means to cope, Al’s downward spiral culminates with her walloping her boyfriend Andy Flanagan with a bottle of wine. In the aftermath of said walloping, Al is now sectioned to Fleet Ward. She is on a cocktail of prescription drugs that are only partly helping her.
Al’s assessments of her fellow patients are witty and sarcastic. Everyone is on edge and it sometimes does not take much for any or all of them to tip over into anger. Al can be especially volatile when she is frustrated which is why she has yet to convince her doctor she is well enough for release. Despite the different personalities and issues, everyone on Fleet Unit gets along for the most part. Which is why everyone is shocked when one of their own is murdered.
Al decides to put on her DC hat as she investigates the murder. Without the usual resources, she relies on her own observations and opinions as well as favors from a former colleague. Al quickly zeroes on a suspect and nothing she learns will shake her conviction she has found the killer. When another murder occurs, what will happen to Al and her fragile grip on reality?
With a sensitive portrayal of mental illness, Rabbit Hole is a creative mystery with a unique setting and memorable narrator. Al is suffering from a variety of PTSD symptoms and side effects from her medication. She has lucid moments but she also contends with troubling blackouts. Al is extremely irritated no one is taking her investigation seriously and her reactions are not always rational. Fearing the worst when Al learns an arrest is imminent, Mark Billingham brings this mesmerizing mystery to an unexpected, yet uplifting, conclusion.
