The Reservoir by John M. Thompson. A girl is found in the reservoir in 1885, so you don’t have any forensics. But you do have human personalities, and acute observers.
Black Girl, While Girl by Joyce Carol Oates. Two college roommates and the conflation of racism and mental illness really made this a standout for me.
We talked about Perfume during our meeting.
In The Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. The same guy who gave us The Devil in the White City sends Ambassador Dodd to 1933 Germany with his daughter, who never met a man she didn’t like, and the death of Dodd’s innocence.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.
Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill by Robert Whiteker. A history of insanity in America, and a moment of sanity that we walked past and never looked back.