It is September 1954, and the place is Shutter Island, one of a string of islands off Boston, home to the Ashecliffe hospital for the criminally insane, where the worst of the worst are kept. One of these bad characters is Rachel Solando, a mother who drowned her three children and somehow managed to disappear from this maximum security institution. To find her, two U.S. Marshals are sent from Boston by ferry.
Most of us do not think twice about our perception of reality: we assume that what we see, hear, and remember is what actually exists and has really happened. This certainly applies to the books we read. But what if our grasp of reality is more tentative than we thought? What if what we assume to be happening is not what is actually taking place? This superb psychological thriller examines these questions to a frightening effect by assaulting the reader's sense of what is real in the story and what is not. First published in 2003, Island is being made into a motion picture with release date sometime next year, but if you can't wait for the movie, and if you love disturbing, mind-bending fiction, you owe to yourself to get a copy of this frightening thriller.
As Daniels and Aule investigate the disappearance, they encounter more questions than answers, and the story takes on a Twilight Zone quality: How was Rachel able to escape from her locked room, barefoot, through guard checkpoints, and into the inhospitable island, filled with wild thorn bushes and rats the size of a moccasin? Why are there no signs of her flight anywhere: where are the footprints, the bent vegetation to mark her furtive passage?
The only logical explanation seems to be that Rachel had inside help in her escape. Was Dr. Sheehan, who seems to have left the island during the lock down following her escape, the one who helped Rachel? Rachel was certainly a woman of secrets, leaving behind a bizarre riddle. But why would she leave the riddle behind if she and her doctor were planning a life together? It seems as if Rachel wanted to tell Daniels something and hid her message inside an enigma.
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