In 1905 Philadelphia, Owen Townsend is recovering from a recent bout of typhoid that almost killed him. Out in the park with his fiancée Maude, he suffers a sudden—and violent—psychotic break and winds up a patient in Fairmount Lodge. Suddenly, everything Owen has worked for is at risk: Maude is rethinking their engagement; his rival Byron Luce makes a play to rekindle his relationship with her; and Owen's medical career is all but over. Even worse, there’s something very wrong at Fairmount Lodge. Not only are the patients put on display, forced to engage in regular ballroom dances for the amusement of elites who come to gawk, but a fire and other deadly incidents seem to indicate a plot to completely ruin Owen and ensure he remains in the asylum forever.

Jess Wright's DANCE IN A MADHOUSE does a very good job of establishing the state of psychiatry and general mental health in the early 20^th century, as well as emphasizing Owen’s powerlessness. Having been committed to Fairmount, he must prove his sanity to a skeptical (and unreliable) doctor: a mission complicated by his growing sense that someone (very likely his rival, Luce) is manipulating things against him. The novel gets a lot of energy from the possibility that Owen is in fact paranoid, and the author wisely keeps us guessing for a while.

The mystery and colorful characters whom Owen meets at Fairmount are both handled well and hold the reader’s interest. Owen is given a lot of freedom to investigate his situation, which sometimes reads as plot convenience but keeps the story moving at a good pace. Unfortunately, having the primary perceived antagonist completely off-page for the entirety of the story undermines his impact, rendering many of the attacks against Owen and others more remote than they should be. We also don’t have any sense of what Owen was like before his attack, or what his relationship with Maude or Luce was prior to his illness—which also makes it hard to gauge how dangerous Luce may or may not be.

The characters all speak in a similar cadence, often a series of declarative sentences, which can make some of the dialogue a bit of a drone. But the story itself is evocative, and the historically accurate ballroom dances (a horrifying cruelty inflicted upon people) are used effectively to underscore both the primitive nature of mental health care at the time and Owen’s nightmarish situation. In the end, DANCE IN A MADHOUSE is a satisfying story that historical mystery fans looking for a unique setting will enjoy.

Jess Wright's DANCE IN A MADHOUSE is a solid mystery that captures a fascinating moment in our approach to mental health, but stilted writing and a missing antagonist weaken the overall impact.

~ Jeff Somers for IndieReader