A cure for madness by Jodi McIsaac

This thriller aimed at adults is a great paced read which leaves you thinking.

Clare Campbell has just found out that her parents have been murdered and she has been granted legal guardianship of her schizophrenic brother Wes, who is just about to be released from a psychiatric facility. After spending most of her life trying to stay away from this side of her family, Clare is sucked into a world of mental illness, delusional rantings and conspiracy theories. As Wes's behaviour becomes mirrored by those around him and people are physically turning on each other, the CDC intervenes and a town is quarantined. Just what kind of nightmare has Clare stepped back into and is there some iota of truth about Wes's crazy ravings?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As you move through Clare's story you alternate at her bravery with dealing with the murders to being annoyed at her selfishness at wanting to run away at the first sign of trouble. I think that the reason given for Wes going into the hospital in the first place was a little strange-firstly because that led to so many years of him being in hospital and secondly because of how quickly Clare jumped into a physical relationship after it. The explanation behind the virus and its spread were a good view on the "contagion epidemic" too. Just enough of a scare factor to get you to believe it and buy into some of the theories.

A few editing mistakes but nothing to detract from the story. So just as you think it's close to the end and things should be working in our heroes favour-BANG; the story finishes. I turned the page and it was definitely done. I went back and checked the previous page-yup definitely finished. Very strange! So I decided to read the last chapter again. Hmm-it took me a day to think about it. Either I got the very clever ending that the author didn't make obvious or the book was just wrapped up in a heartbeat. Personally I would like to believe in the clever ending just because of the first few sentences at the beginning of the last chapter. Either way it was a really good book.

Thanks to Netgalley for the chance to review it.