Eight thrillers featuring characters with memory disorders

Bradeigh Godfrey is a physician, mom of four, and a writer. Her medical career is focused on caring for veterans with visible and invisible disabilities, and she is passionate about improving quality of life and wellness in veterans through research, teaching, and clinical work.

Her debut novel, Imposter, is a psychological thriller exploring sisterhood, secrets, and the neuroscience of memory and trauma.

At CrimeReads Godfrey tagged eight favorite psychological thrillers, including:

Find Me by Alafair Burke

A woman is found after being thrown from an overturned vehicle, not knowing her own identity—again, much like Jason Bourne. Fifteen years later, her amnesia has still not recovered…and then she vanishes without a trace.

Could this really happen? The vanishing part, sure. But the long-term amnesia? Probably not, for the same reasons explained above. This pattern of amnesia—losing memories of one’s autobiographical past and personal identity—is not typically seen after a traumatic brain injury and is suggestive of a psychogenic cause (more on that below). But again, does it work for the story, keeping the reader turning pages, desperate to find out what happens next? Yes!

Read about another entry on the list.

Q&A with Alafair Burke.

--Marshal Zeringue