Kenetria Nash finds herself on her way to her new historical preservationist job, as an archivist for a noteworthy home on an island in the Hudson River, with no memory of what’s happened for the past six years—including applying for, or accepting, this new position. A position that seems too perfect to be real. A huge storm is about to hit the island and any boats trying to reach it, cell service is out, and Kenetria—who goes by Ken—is going to have to dig deep for answers, but not in the way the reader might expect.
Alyssa Cole takes an innovative approach to worldbuilding in One of Us Knows, with most of the characters in the book all existing inside one person, Ken. Ken experiences dissociative identity disorder (DID), which used to be known as multiple personality disorder. In this story, all of Ken’s identities, or alters, are fleshed-out characters with motivations, strengths and weaknesses–and while some of them do communicate with each other directly, the whole group has agreed to maintain their system’s communication and survival with an online journal. Some of the alters are behaving in unexpected ways, though—which might be as a result of stress brought on by the fairly new COVID epidemic (the book is set in 2022), or because of something else entirely. But could one of the alters be a murderer? Ken also finds herself in the position of having to figure that out, to save herself and her system.
Cole keeps the internal and external action going at a dizzying but well-sorted clip, and pokes fun at expected psychological horror, thriller, and haunted house tropes. The characters experience parallels between the COVID pandemic and the 1918 influenza epidemic, which affected the original inhabitants of the creepy, castle-like house—the notorious house that hosts much of the action, in more ways than one. Some of the alters use humor as a defense mechanism, which makes for plenty of wisecracks as the mystery of their trauma unfolds, and as the suspense builds. The pace moves fast enough that the reader doesn’t have time to guess what’s around every turn, and most of those guesses would be wrong, anyway. A fresh, unabashed thriller that tackles heavy topics with a deft touch, One of Us Knows is a great read for a stormy weekend.
Cole, A. (2024). One of us knows : a thriller (First edition). William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
