This week’s HORROR BOOK OF THE WEEK is THE SILENT PATIENT. Written by Alex Michaelides, the book was published in 2019 by Celadon Books. The book is still on the bestsellers list for Murder Thrillers and Psychological Thrillers.
THE SILENT PATIENT has been optioned for film as well.
Customers who bought the book found it to have one of the best plot twists of all time and a real page-turner.
Critics found the book to be well-written and the author skilled enough to build tension until the very last page.
However, some of them found the book to have tacky horror tropes and poorly written side characters that serve as red herrings.
The Silent Patient is gripping. There is no doubt about the proficiency of the author to write a story that will have you keep turning pages. The story is intriguing. The narrator is Theo Faber, a psychotherapist, who is drawn to a woman called Alicia Berenson. He waits for the opportunity for her to be transferred to the Grove, a facility for mental patients and applies for a job there.
We learn about Theo’s past, the abuse he suffered, the love that walks into his life only to end up in betrayal.
And then there is Alicia, who has her own childhood trauma to deal with. Her husband Gabriel was supposed to be her knight in shining armor but just why would she shoot him?
The suspense builds up to a rather mediocre ending. It’s disappointing because as a reader you put your trust in the narrator and the author only to find you have been duped by the timelines.
The twist seems convenient and the ending is a let down to an otherwise excellent plot and concise first half.
The Plot (Taken from Amazon.com)
The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband―and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive.
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.…
The book is available on Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover and as an Audiobook.
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