" Sanctuary", by Lisa Appignanesi

This murder mystery tells the gripping story of Leo Holland, a Manhattan cartoonist who is filled with the sense of dread. She has a premonition that something terrible has happened to her best friend Isabel Morgan, an investigative journalist from London who was scheduled to meet her in New York.

The pace of the story picks up when Leo desperate, flies to London to trace Isabel's last steps. She is convinced that her friend's disappearance is linked to her latest research on genetically modified organisms and that her analyst may be holding the key to her whereabouts. Leo uses her anonymity and masquerades as a patient to find the truth and in the process discovers more that she could ever have imagined... The novel hinges extensively on psychoanalytical techniques.

"Sanctuary" is a profound psychological thriller that reflects on how little we actually know our best friends, not to mention ourselves and how deeply events in our past affect us. Ms Appignanesi has given us a novel that is also enchanting in its own way with a large cast of memorable and well developed characters, settings that are trendy and nicely painted and a plot that is complex and poignant.