What Rose Forgot: 11/30/19

What Rose Forgot by Nevada Barr is a standalone novel mystery that spends the first third trying to convince you it's something else entirely. Rose remembers starting her daily yoga routine only to wake up somewhere else, dressed completely wrong, and significantly frailer than she should be. When she seeks help, she's taken to a nursing home she's never heard of and told that she's been there for some time because of early onset Alzheimer's.

Rose, though, doesn't believe a word of what she's told. She decides she's being kept against her will and that the drugs they're giving her are to keep her compliant. She reasons the only she's going to get the truth is if she escapes.

Rose's fortitude and creativity are the first reminder that we're reading a Nevada Barr book. As the novel progresses it becomes easier to imagine Rose as an elderly Anna Pigeon.

Once outside the confines of the nursing home the novel sheds its literary fiction skin to reveal its underlying mystery soul. Rose with the help of a grand-daughter and sister with mad computer skills is able to solve the mystery of her missing months and who is behind it.

Four stars

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