THE LIGHT RUNNER

The mystery surrounding the murder of Hannah Haskell, a researcher at a Baltimore-based pharmaceutical company, sets a strange story in motion in Walker’s novel.

The victim’s grieving husband, Oliver, a retired Army captain running for a U.S. Senate seat, checks into a sprawling psychiatric hospital, where much of the tale unfolds; the author imbues it with a Gothic sense of foreboding, but also with a more optimistic feeling of magical potential. Oliver’s case falls to psychiatrist Ella Kramer, fresh off her residency and secretly having an affair with her supervisor. Her interactions with the new patient unsettle her—she agrees with a detective that Oliver “simply seemed…detached”—and this sparks an investigation that will lead her into unexpected places. It will also force her to confront her own past and even lead her to strange explanations of her lifelong, chronic headaches. Although the story is firmly Ella’s, Walker also weaves in the perspectives of other characters, including grizzled cop Paul Moran and patient Sebastian Crown, as well as the latter’s alternate personalities, who are more complicated than they seem: gentle gardener Malakhi and fearless enforcer Nadine. The complexity of the plot could easily be overwhelming or disorienting in lesser hands, but the pacing is exemplary here; Walker gives readers plenty of time to ground themselves before gradually and carefully layering on speculative and even mystical aspects. The novel also slowly weaves in a conspiracy involving the murder victim’s workplace, as well as a more unusual and frightening menace. In short, the novel manages to blend elements of multiple genres, and heady ideas, without ever sacrificing characterization.

A tense, slowly unwinding tale with well-developed characters.