I mean, you can make any character seem suspicious and create false suspense very easily if you have no obligation to deliver any resolutions.

Like, for example, the plot about the brother in law assaulting her, or the cousin borrowing money, - none of those things are resolved and it just feels like a lazy way for the author to point our suspicions in the wrong direction while leaving frustrating loose ends everywhere.

The author also spends an awful lot of the book having the main character, Theo, ‘investigate’ Alicia’s family members - the cousin, the aunt, the brother in law, her gallery manager - and each of them is made to seem weird, untrustworthy and in some cases outright creepy - but all of it ends up just feeling like a cheap trick, because nothing comes of any of them. It just gets so convoluted and meandering, and I couldn’t really follow what actually happened, from what was meant to be the lies and fantasy of some characters. I felt like the author was so determined to deliver the big ‘twist’ that he lost sight of the actual plot. This book starts off really strong with a great premise - intriguing and mysterious right away - the writing is even pretty strong in the beginning, but somewhere along the way it all seemed to fall apart for me. 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. 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. Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. 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. 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.Īlicia’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. 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.

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect.

The silent patient pages