The Silent Patient – Alex Michaelides

Genre: Thriller, Mystery
Publisher: Celadon Books
Pages: 325
Release Date: February 5, 2019

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him….

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The Silent Patient is a wild ride. It’s full of twists and turns with a jaw dropping moment at the end that made me gasp out loud.

The Silent Patient follows Theo as he takes it upon himself to help a woman who has been convicted for murdering her husband. Unfortunately, she refuses to speak and has not spoken for a few years.

The Silent Patient is one of those novels best read without learning too much about it beforehand. Michaelides’ writing is poetic and stylized as he brings readers through multiple twists and turns. His misdirections are masterfully written and had me convinced I knew where the story was going only for him to pull the rug from under my feet.

I will say that I read this after his second novel, The Maidens. Though I did enjoy The Maidens, it doesn’t hold a candle to The Silent Patient. So, I’m eagerly awaiting his next novel.

Overall, The Silent Patient is a thriller not to be missed. It’s full of twists and turns that will leave readers shocked and in awe of this incredible story Michaelides weaved together.

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Have you read The Silent Patient? What did you think?