The Breakdown

Finished September 1
The Breakdown by B.A.Paris

I'd read her first book Behind Closed Doors, and found it a real page-turner, so I was interested to read this one. It was just as good. Great psychological thriller, with a fascinating plot. I guessed at some things, but not at all at others.
Cass is a school teacher, married nearly a year, and starting to think about children with her husband Matthew. Cass's dad died relatively young in an accident, and her mother died just a couple years ago from early onset Alzheimer's. Cass had left her teaching job to look after her for the last couple years of her life. Imagine Cass's surprise to find out that her parents, despite living a penny pinching life, had actually had quite a large nest egg. Cass is a nice woman who likes to give people thoughtful gifts, and now she can do things like that. She is excited to think about her best friend Rachel's upcoming 40th birthday this fall and the look on her face when she finds that Cass has bought her the French cottage that she fell in love with. No one knows about that surprise, not even Matthew, but that's partly because he doesn't seem to really like Rachel all that much.
Cass has made friends at the school she now teaches at and is at the leaving party to celebrate the end of the school year as the novel begins. It's a stormy night and she decides to not go on to the after party at her friend's house, but to go home instead. When she phones her husband to let him know, he tells her that he's got a migraine and is going to sleep in the spare room, but to be careful on the way home, and he emphasizes that she shouldn't take the short cut through the woods, in case of downed branches or other issues. Cass intends to follow his advice, but the traffic on the motorway is so bad that she makes a sudden decision to take the shortcut after all. The road is clear, but she is nervous, and she is surprised to see a car stopped in a layby. She only gets a glance of the woman driver through the rain and car windows, but she stops ahead of it to see if the woman needs help. Nothing happens, so she continues intending to call the police about the woman when she gets home, but a text from Rachel distracts her, and she forgets.
When the woman in the car is found murdered the next morning, Cass is freaked out. She doesn't want to admit she took that road after all, and she didn't see anything anyway, but she's still scared because of how close to home it happened. When she begins forgetting things, small things, but also important things, she gets scared that she's getting the same disease as her mother.
As we follow Cass's descent into fear and uncertainty, we see the people around her that don't know the whole story not understand her issues. She moves into a world of oblivion to get away from her fears, but in a way that is worse for her.
This is a story of manipulation, of unreliable characters, and of betrayal. A fantastic read.
And an extra element is an interview with the author at the end of the last disc.