Left reeling and bereft by the events of the first book, Elliott returns in this second installment of Anna Madorsky’s psychological thriller series: DISSOLVED. Elliott’s tumultuous separation from Jason gives her barely enough breathing room to make new friendships and reevaluate herself, clawing through layers of introspection to make sense of her place in the world. But when one of her new friends gets fixated on a murder case with ties to both her and Jason, they’re forced to reunite in order to protect themselves—and each other.
Elliott’s voice is as unique as her introduction in Gutted, but her somewhat distracted, fragmented, and rambling introspection is more pronounced in DISSOLVED. Both darkly humorous and evocative, Madorsky’s prose weaves itself with poetry. Clever turns of phrase elevate the story. “He was alien terrain with inconceivable geology,” Elliot says of Jason. Even minor observations characterize her voice, her worldview: “The cold air waltzed in as if perturbed I’d kept it out too long.”
Yet sometimes Elliott’s mental or physical detours begin to feel too meandering, especially during the middle of the book, when she and various side characters fall into certain routines. The pacing stagnates a little in places, repetitive and plodding along. One such detour involves an otherwise charming bookshop owner whom Elliott befriends platforming a transphobic author in his bookshop, which seems altogether unnecessary to the story and unkind in the tone it tries to convey.
But the book’s overarching theme of dissolution carries into every corner of the narrative with an effective, sometimes jarring weight. The dissolution of families across generations, of conventional morality, of criminal evidence, of Elliott herself and her marriage to Jason. Even her own thoughts become progressively more disconnected and adrift as the book reaches its conclusion.
The exploration of her past—and her reckoning with familial ties—gives insight into her character, choices, flaws, and fears. The maternal presence of her newly discovered aunt adds a grounding element to her life, a welcome source of guidance outside of her therapy sessions. All the while, Jason continues to haunt her. He (and all of the ways Elliott has felt herself being changed by him) lurks even when he isn’t physically there—and when he is, there’s this heavy sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop. And drop it does, with surprising unpredictability.
Although a little meandering and slow at times, Anna Madorsky's DISSOLVED has a sense of unease that creeps around the edges at all times. The novel is both unpredictable and suffocating in its suspense.
~Jessica Thomas for IndieReader.