From Sandra Block, the author of the critically acclaimed debut novel, Little Black Lies, which The New York Times called “a psychological suspense story smartly narrated” comes The Girl Without A Name (Grand Central Publishing; an original trade paperback; September 8, 2015; $14.99) a powerful novel of memory and forgetting, of unexpected friendship and understanding...and of the secrets we protect no matter the consequences.
In what passes for an ordinary day in a psych ward, Dr. Zoe Goldman is stumped when a highly unusual case arrives. A young African American girl, found wandering the streets of Buffalo in a catatonic state, is brought in by police. No one has come forward to claim her, and all leads have been exhausted.
When medical science seems to be failing, Zoe takes matters into her own hands to track down Jane Doe's family and piece together their checkered history. As she unearths their secrets, she finds that monsters hide where they are least expected. Now she must solve the mystery before it is too late. Because someone wants to make sure this young girl never remembers.
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| [photo credit: Brian Block] |
About the Author
Sandra Block graduated from college at Harvard, then returned to her native land of Buffalo, New York, for medical training and never left. She is a practicing neurologist and proud Sabres fan and lives at home with her husband, two children, and their impetuous yellow lab, Delilah. She has been published in both medical and poetry journals. Her first novel, LITTLE BLACK LIES was published by Grand Central Publishing in 2015.
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- Download an extended free preview e-book of THE GIRL WITHOUT A NAME
An extended free preview e-book of THE GIRL WITHOUT A NAME by Sandra Block (Grand Central; ISBN- 9781455564095) will be available starting Tuesday July 14th. Visit any major online book retailer including Amazon.com, B&N.com, IndieBound.com, and more to download and dive into the newest Zoe Goldman mystery.
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Read an Excerpt
We call her Jane because she can’t tell us her name. Can’t or won’t, I’m not sure. She lies in a hospital bed, a strangely old expression upon her teenaged face. We don’t know her age either. Twelve, fourteen maybe. A navy blue hospital blanket sits across her knees in a neat square like a picnic blanket. A picnic in a hospital room, with a white stained ceiling for a sky and faded blue tiles for grass.
Dr. Berringer lifts the patient’s arm, and it stays up, like a human puppet. “What do you think?” he asks.
“Catatonia,” I answer. “Waxy catatonia.”
“Bingo, Dr. Goldman,” he says, his voice encouraging, with just a hint of New Orleans, where he’s from. His voice doesn’t match his face. He looks like a Kennedy, with sandy, wind-blown hair as if he just walked off a sailboat and blue eyes with lashes so long he could be wearing mascara. He is, in a word, handsome. He is also, in a word, married, much to the disappointment of the entire female staff at the
Children’s Hospital of Buffalo. Let’s just say the nurses perk up when Dr. Tad Berringer hits the floor.
Jane’s arm drifts back down, her eyes still focused on the wall.
“But why is she catatonic?” I ask.
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”
Jane Doe is our mystery. A police officer brought her to our doorstep this morning like a stork dropping off a baby. A few days ago, she was found wandering the streets of Buffalo, dazed and filthy, clothes torn, but apparently unharmed. No signs of bruising or rape. But she wouldn’t speak. They coddled her, gave her hot chocolate (which grew cold in the mug), brought in a soft-speaking social worker, and Jane sat and stared. So the police canvassed the neighborhood, fingerprinted her, ran her image through Interpol, put up missing posters adorned with her unsmiling, staring face.
Name: unknown. Race: African American. DOB: unknown.
No one claimed her. They brought her to Children’s and ran some tests. The ER said there was nothing wrong with her physically. So they sent her up to the psych floor. So we can figure out who she is and what’s wrong with her.
“Schizophrenia maybe?” I ask.
“Could be.” His eyes crinkle in thought. “But we also have to rule out other, less obvious causes.” He leans over the bed and shines a penlight into her eyes. Her pupils contract, then bloom. “You ever hear of the hammer syndrome, Zoe?”
“No,” I say, jotting this onto the back of my sheet.
“It goes like this: When all you have is a hammer, everything looks
like a nail.”
I stop writing, and he drops the penlight into his black doctor bag, smiling at me. “What can we establish here?” he asks, more a statement than a question. “Our patient has catatonia; that’s all we know. So let’s start with that. What’s the differential for catatonia?”
“Schizophrenia.”
“Okay, that’s one.”
“Right.” I wait for the list to scramble into my head. That’s the one good thing about ADHD. Alongside the scattered, ridiculous thoughts that pop up relentlessly (and which you have to keep banging down like a never-ending game of whack-a mole) sprout elegant, detailed lists. Such as differential diagnoses. Lately that hasn’t been happening for me, though. I don’t know if my Adderall is working too well or not well enough. My dopamine isn’t cooperating in any case, which is inconvenient, seeing as I’m on probation. My brain grinds on in slow motion with no list anywhere in sight, so I plow through the old standby mnemonic for the differential diagnosis of any disease. Something medical students learn the first day they step on the wards: VITAMIN D. Vascular, infectious, traumatic, autoimmune, metabolic, iatrogenic, neoplastic, degenerative.
“Status epilepticus,” I say.
“Excellent thought. Did we order an EEG?”
“I will,” I say, writing it in her chart.
“What else?”
A list crawls into my brain by inches. “Encephalitis?”
“Okay. Does she have a fever?”
I pull off the vital sheet hooked on the bed frame, scanning the blue, scribbled numbers from this morning. Vitals normal.
“No fever, but it’s still possible. Her labs are pending.”
“Get neurology to see her. They can decide on a lumbar puncture. She’ll probably need it, though, if the EEG is negative.”
“They said she didn’t need an LP in the ER.”
He doesn’t look impressed. “Just means the on-call didn’t feel like it.”
“We could get an MRI,” I suggest.
“Fine. What are you looking for there?”
“Less common causes for catatonia . . . stroke, lupus, Hallervorden-Spatz,” I say, cheered as the differential diagnosis list starts to soar in. “That could show up on MRI. PET scan, too.”
“Let’s start with an MRI,” he says, tamping down my overenthusiasm.
“Let Neurology decide on the PET.” Jane blinks, grimaces, then stares again. I hand Dr. Berringer her chart, which he balances in his palm, adding a couple of lines under my note then signing it with a flourish. He hands it back to me. “Onward and upward?” We exit the quiet oasis of Jane’s room, emerging into the hallway awash with hospital noises: the overhead speaker calling out, food carts rattling by with the malodorous smell of breakfast that no one will eat, medical students scampering around the floor like lost bunnies. Dr. Berringer’s phone rings, to the tune of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” and he picks it up as we head down the hall.
“Hello?” There is squawking on the other end. “She just showed up today.” He listens a minute while we walk. “I’m sorry. I don’t know any more than y’all.” This is met with more squawking on the other end. “Right. Listen, I’ll tell you as soon as I know something. I promise.” He hangs up with an eye roll, smiling at me. “Admissions wants her demographic info. Jane Doe, folks. That’s all I got.” He strides in front of me into the nurses’ station. Dr. Berringer has a jogger’s body, long and lean, verging on skinny. He is tall, taller than me even, and I’m over six feet. As he leans in the door frame, a nurse, roundish in her lavender scrubs, openly gapes at him. “Any other consults come in overnight?” he asks Jason, who is sitting at the little brown Formica table, poring through a chart.
Jason adjusts his bow tie. He must have a hundred bow ties with matching shirts. I’ve never seen him repeat a color. “Three,” he says. “I have two, and Zoe’s got the new girl.”
“And one more I haven’t seen yet,” I add. “Just came in this morning.”
“So let’s round later. Around two?” Dr. Berringer asks.
“That’s good for me,” Jason answers. Jason is chief resident, so he’s in charge of rounding. I was all but promised the job when Dr. A (the smartest in our threesome and also the one who saved my life) transferred into the neurovascular fellowship. But then I was put on probation, so that was the end of that. Jason calls me Probation Girl.
“All right. See y’all later,” Dr. Berringer says with a wave. His teeth are white bright, bleached maybe, in perfect rows like pieces of Chiclets gum. My brother, Scotty, accuses me of having a crush on Dr. Berringer, claiming that “every sentence you say has his name in it,” but he’s exaggerating. If anything, it’s a minor crush. Minimal.
“You want to bed that guy so badly,” Jason says as soon as he’s out of earshot.
“Please. That is beyond ridiculous.”
“Whatever you say,” he mutters, leaning over to grab another chart from the rack.
I crack open Jane’s chart and finish off the orders. Neurology consult. IV fluids because she’s not eating. DVT precautions because she’s not moving. “Anyway, you’re one to talk.”
He pauses to think. “Okay, empirically he’s good-looking, I agree with you. But he’s just so . . . white.” He pronounces the word with some distaste. Jason, being Chinese American, can say this.
“What about Dominic? Last I looked, he was white, too.” Dominic is a nurse at the hospital and Jason’s on-again, offagain boyfriend. Mostly off-again.
“Yeah, but he’s Italian. He could pass as Hispanic or something. He’s not Mr. Ralph Lauren.”
“Sure, well, as long as he could pass as something ethnic.” I shove Jane’s chart aside, leaning back in the stiff, metal chair. “So are you back to dating Dominic this week?”
“I don’t know. That guy’s so hot and cold,” he complains.
“I see him at the bars and he’s all over me. Then we come to work and he flirts with girls. I’m, like, just pick a goddamn team and play for it.”
“You should just dump his ass,” I say.
“Yeah, probably. Hey, speaking of dumping, whatever happened with that French dude? You ever hear any more from him?”
“Who, Jean Luc?”
“Yeah. That boy was smoking hot.”
Jason is right on that one. Jean Luc was smoking hot. Hotter than I am, that’s for sure. I’ve always been a solid six, maybe seven on a good hair day. Jean Luc was more like an eleven, or a twelve. Still is, I imagine. “Not in a while,” I answer. “Still with Melanie,” I mention, before he can ask. Melanie, the model-beautiful girlfriend he left me for.
“Oh well. All’s well that ends well,” Jason says, meaning Mike. And he’s definitely right about that one.
Jason turns back to his progress note, and I stash Jane’s chart back in the rack, ready to see my next patient. On the way down the hall, I pass by Jane’s room and see Dr. Berringer standing by the bed, staring at her. He lays his hand on her head, tenderly. Like a father patting his child’s head.
Praise for A Girl Without A Name
I am a forever-fan of the Zoe Goldman series and will read anything Sandra Block writes. You should too.”
Lisa Scottoline, New York Times bestselling author
“A psychological suspense story smartly narrated.”
The New York Times Book Review
“A promising new author.”
—Booklist
"Taut writing. Great protagonist."
—BookLoons.com
“Sandra Block pulls you in deep and doesn’t let go.”
—Meg Gardiner, Edgar Award-winning author
“In Zoe, Block has created a character who is
complicated, smart, and sympathetic.”
—Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times bestselling author
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