The Silent Patient

Alicia Berenson is convicted of brutally murdering her fashion photographer husband. She is rendered complete mute when she is discovered next to the body of Gabriel who has been shot 5 times in the face. Silent throughout her trial she eventually finds herself remanded to a secure psychiatric unit called the Grove. This is where criminal psychotherapist Theo Faber, determined to help, finds her.

I don't read a lot of thriller but enough that I like to play along. The written form has proven immensely malleable and has given us some inventive takes in the genre. Here, Michaelides gives us an abundance of red herrings, more than a handful of likely suspects with plausible motives, (seriously, Alicia needs to find a better class of friends and acquaintances) some diary entries, and references to the tragedy of Alcestis from the ancient Greek playwright Euripides. You know with the economy of characters someone here is not what they seem and it's fun fitting different theories to the story as it progresses. This left me guessing til the very end and having a page-turning blast along the way.