Overview

Katie Throckmorton is a twenty-eight-year-old pill-popping, alcoholic writer from Boston. She’s just been dumped by her wealthy older girlfriend and traded in for a newer model; so her only option is to move in temporarily with her father, Axel, and his trophy wife, Regina. But the real trouble starts when Axel and Regina go out one night, leaving Katie to babysit her sociopathic half-sister, Lockwood. While throwing a temper tantrum, the child falls down a staircase to her death. Katie had nothing to do with it, but she did strike Lockwood before she fell – and because Katie was intoxicated at the time, with no one else present to corroborate her story, she’s charged with third-degree murder; diagnosed with a mental disorder; and locked up in Greystone Asylum. Soon after Katie arrives at Greystone, grisly murders begin taking place – and Katie has the incredible misfortune of being found not ten feet away from the first crime scene. She saw the murderer before he fled: a tall, thin man in a black hood. But no one believes her. They think she’s the murderer. Everyone except Katie’s psychiatrist, that is. Cora Halstead is a beautiful middle-aged woman – just Katie’s usual type of poison. And, as luck would have it (Katie’s not sure if it’s good or bad luck), the two women seem to find themselves irresistibly drawn to one another. But Katie just has to wonder – can you still call it transference when you fall for your psychiatrist after being admitted to an insane asylum for something you didn’t even do? In any case, it seems like Katie’s relationship with Cora can’t possibly have a happy ending. People keep dying in horrifying ways – and Katie begins to wonder if maybe she’ll be next. What secrets is this old hospital hiding? Who can be trusted? Can anyone be trusted? Can Katie even trust Cora?