The Asylum

By John Harwood

Published May 2013

I am Miss Georgina Ferrars, of Gresham’s Yard, London.

I am.

I swear that I am.

And I shall prove it.

A young woman wakes in a strange bed beneath coarse sheets.

The bare walls are a dismal green. A sickly light filters through a metal grille.

Doctor Maynard Straker steps into the room, and speaks.

‘Have no fear, Miss Ashton. I am entirely at your ser-‘

But this is not her name. And she should not be here – in the Asylum.

She is Miss Georgina Ferrars, of Gresham’s Yard, London.

And she can prove it – she has Dr Straker telegram her uncle in London.

The reply is swift:

Georgina Ferrars here stop your patient must be impostor stop

So begins a gothic mystery of intense suspense and terror, as a lone woman, held against her will, is forced to regain her mind, to delve as deeply as she can into the void of her memory to uncover the story that will free her.

Harwood has a gift for creating suspense, apparently effortlessly.

Ruth Rendell