Categories: Thriller

The Silent Patient – Alex Michaelides

Psychological thriller is a fairly popular book category recently. Murder, mystery, step-by-step investigation of the truth, which is usually surprising and nobody expects it. A good psychological thriller is one that will hold you in suspense, be unpredictable, and at the same time realistic. This is Alex Michaelidis’ novel “The Silent Patient”.

The Cypriot author made his debut with this book and quickly climbed to the heights of popularity. “The Silent Patient” became number one on the New York Times list a week after it appeared in bookstores in February 2019. Only a month later, the first information about the plans to screen her appeared. Both among critics and readers, “The Silent Patient” took a huge harvest of positive comments and reviews. So what is this novel about and what makes it so interesting?

“The Silent Patient” simply has everything in the world that is expected from a good psychological thriller. Addictive, unpredictable, surprising. And it’s perfectly written, the pages pass by without even knowing when, the next pieces of the puzzle are thrown to the reader in well-chosen intervals, but practically to the last pages you can’t be sure what the final version of events was.

In the centre of the novel is, of course, a murder shrouded in mystery. The victim is Gabriel, a fashion photographer. Alleged killer – Alicia, his wife, a popular painter. A happy, trouble-free marriage, in love with each other to the ears. And yet something was wrong. Alicia shot Gabriel in the face several times and then cut her wrists. She was rescued, but hasn’t said a word since. She painted another painting – her self-portrait signed “Alkestis”. And she is silent. Due to this silence, the court considered her insane and locked her not in prison, but in a psychiatric centre. So where is the secret? Everything seems to be simple – we know the perpetrator, she’s crazy, why go through the subject. And yet, there will be someone who will dig, who will try to understand what happened to the heroine, which led her to such terrible deeds. And why she withdrew into the world of silence.

However, this someone will not be, as usual in similar books, a policeman or a detective, but a psychotherapist, Theo Faber. Fascinated by Alicia’s story, he will do anything to know the motive and help the woman. For example, he will work in the center where Alicia is staying and will try to personally conduct her therapy. It’s difficult to treat someone who doesn’t answer questions or communicate, and who is either extremely aggressive or under the influence of too many sedatives to even know what’s happening. However, Theo is determined that if he cannot reach Alicia directly, he will reach her family, friends, colleagues…

Step by step, the image of Alicia’s past, her problems she was struggling with, is still missing a fragment, and one more, and one more… What will the psychotherapist discover at the end? Will he manage to persuade a woman to speak to him? What does Alkestis – the heroine of the Greek tragedy of Euripides, whose name is Alicia in her last self-portrait – have to do with all this?

The novel raises the very important issue of past trauma, which can cause deep wounds and lead to completely unforeseen consequences. It is full of issues concerning the human psyche and various types of therapy, but not in a way that would obscure the main theme – murder and an attempt to find its meaning and motive. A big plus for the author for his ability to incorporate these more scientific elements in a natural and balanced way.

Theo is the narrator of the whole novel and we observe him not only in meetings with Alicia and as her therapist. An important element of the whole novel is also his private life, his story. It is a background, but one without which the whole thing wouldn’t make sense – like a background image. Some subsections of “The Silent Patient” are also written from Alicia’s perspective – these are fragments of her diary, revealing additional details of the story to the Reader. The whole is collected into a neat but complicated story that you want to know.

This book is not read, it is devoured. It is the quintessence of what a psychological thriller should consist of. And to anyone who appreciates a strong reading, mysteries, a pinch of psychology and an engaging narrative – I recommend the “The Silent Patient” with all my heart.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

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