You Know What You Did by K. T. Nguyen

You Know what You Did

K T Nguyen

(Dutton)

Debut Author

Annie Shaw has the complete American life. She has a Pulitzer prize-winning handsome, loving husband, an annoying teenage daughter Tabby, and a career as an up and coming artist. Her early life as the daughter of a Vietnamese war refugee seems remote compared to her current wealth. Although Annie’s mother’s tendency to control her life isn’t welcome, she tolerates it. Then her mother dies. Annie discovers her body in the granny annex. Her passing reawakens Annie’s dormant OCD and forces her to examine the emotional abuse inflicted on her by her mother and the generational trauma inherit in refugee families.

The disappearance of Annie’s art associate brings the attention of the police to her door. Annie tries to protect her family and friends by distancing herself from them.  But her tactic takes on a deeply sinister form when Annie wakes up naked in a hotel room alongside a dead body, that of a bartender she hooked up with. She has no recollection of what happened and wonders if the disturbing obsessions of her mind are taking concrete form in the real world. The police harden their focus on Annie’s affairs, and she feels as if her mind is becoming increasingly fractured. In seeking rationality, Annie stumbles on a clue that the chaos surrounding her may not be a product of her mind after all, that someone may be manipulating events for their own gain. Can Annie restore sanity to her life and protect Tabby from disaster?

You Know What You Did is a twisting thriller with a claustrophobic atmosphere in which no one and nothing is quite what they seem. Annie’s descent into the nightmare of OCD is well presented with a sympathetic and delicate touch. Readers of psychological suspense will enjoy this book.