The Locked Ward by Sarah Pekkanen

The Locked Ward by Sarah Pekkanen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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Some doors should never be opened.

Was it bitter, all-consuming jealousy? Pathological sibling rivalry? Pure insanity?

Whatever the cause―and everyone has a theory―it's the Crime of the Decade when glamorous Georgia Cartwright, who was adopted as a newborn, is accused of killing the biological daughter of her wealthy, Southern family.

Georgia is locked in a psychiatric institution where the most violent offenders are held while she awaits trial. The only words she whispers when her estranged twin sister Amanda visits are, “I didn’t do it. You’ve got to get me out of here.”

Amanda doesn't trust Georgia, but she can't abandon her in a place so eerie and menacing that it seems to exist in another dimension. Is Georgia the victim of a powerful family that's so depraved murder is the least of their crimes? Or is Amanda being led down a path of madness into the web of a master manipulator?
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I believe this was my first Sarah Pekkanen book, but I have been reading a lot of thrillers in the last two years, and I know she is known for them, so I was very excited to read it. It definitely had a lot of twists and turns...but were there too many? There were some aspects of this book that really worked. I loved that the story was told from the alternating viewpoints of Georgia and Amanda, although I join other reviewers in wondering why second person was chosen for Georgia's chapters. The twins separated at birth premise was a great starting point because of course that is going to lead to a lot of intrigue. And the psychiatric hospital setting was definitely a disturbing place to have Georgia locked up as Amanda tried to figure out just what it was that was going on in her twin's powerful family.

However, some of the twists seemed to come out of left field, and it made them a bit less than believable. The set up just wasn't always there. I definitely didn't guess who the murderer was (like this person was not on my radar AT ALL), and I feel like in the best thrillers, there should be some path that makes sense that gets us there. At the end, I didn't feel completely satisfied, although all in all, this was a good read, just not among the strongest thrillers I have read this year. However, I will definitely try this author again, as I have checked out her other offerings and see that some of them are very highly rated!

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