Alyssa Cole (When No One Is Watching, How to Catch a Queen) plumbs the darkest expanse of depravity in One of Us Knows, with a look at racism and the treatment of marginalized people. Her unpredictable plot combines a locked-room mystery with a gothic tale about a woman with dissociative identity disorder. One of Us Knows revolves around Kenetria "Ken" Nash, who created a safe place for her seven "headmates," or multiple personalities, in a castle-like inner world.
Ken doesn't know that she has been dormant for six years following an incident, or that her headmates have been managing her life. She wakes up on a dock, waiting for a boat to take her to an abandoned Hudson River island, where she will be the caretaker of a crumbling estate, "a defiant treasure." Ken has no knowledge that a headmate applied for the job, but she hopes to make a "deep dive" into the estate. Before her career stalled, she was enrolled in a historical preservation graduate program and had planned to concentrate on Black historical sites such as this one. Ken and her headmates expect that the surly groundskeeper, Celeste, will be the island's only other resident. Then Ken's entitled ex-boyfriend arrives, followed by his racist, misogynistic father and other members of the island's trustees. Events take on an even more sinister turn, but an approaching storm traps everyone on the island, making it impossible for Ken to escape from danger.
Cole keeps the chilling action churning as One of Us Knows illustrates the daily challenges Ken faces in communicating with her headmates. The island's unsavory past, tension between Ken and the trustees, and the estate's warren of rooms add new depths of terror, intensified by the trustees' bigotry. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer