What My Body Remembers By Agnete Friis Soho, 304 pages, $25.95

In writing partnership with her fellow Dane, Lena Kaaberbol, Agnete Friis co-authored four thrilling novels featuring the heroic Red Cross nurse Nina Borg. Now Friis is off on her own, producing a book that is long on characters in extreme distress.

The story features 27-year-old Ella who has known a life of foster homes, addictions and severe cases of paranoia. Ella has an 11year-old son named Alex who is on the edge of falling into an existence not unlike his mother’s.

The source of all the grief seems to lie with Ella’s parents. Did the dad murder the mother when Ella was a child? Ella begins an investigation into her past, a process that consists mostly of staggering from one disaster to the next while keeping her wits about her. The process is grim and breathtaking.