Alex Michaelides is an author I had not heard of before. This book was recommended to me by someone who had read the author’s second book “The Maidens”. With no expectations of what is in store (I don’t think I even read the blurb), I picked up this book at the local library.
An artist (Alicia Berenson) is arrested after killing her husband. She refuses to speak, even when questioned by the police or at her trial. The evidence is against her – the smoking gun with her fingerprints, the police finding her covered in blood – her incarceration a foregone conclusion. A psychiatrist at the trial pleads for her to be committed to a facility instead of going to prison. He recommends The Grove, a place where he works. Her silence continues at this institute as well. In fact, the only communication that has come from Alicia is a painting that depicts the Greek Tragedy – Alcestis. Reading and following this with interest is the narrator of the story – a psychotherapist Theo Farber. He feels, rather strongly, that he can get to her, help her open up and speak out her side of the story. He applies for a job at The Grove and is hired. Theo tries to unravel her silence while also trying to zero in on the mystery man his wife is seeing. Does he succeed on both counts? That forms the rest of the story.
The story is written in a fast paced multi-setting, dual viewpoint manner. While Theo does most of the narration and the story switches between his time at the institute, the connected investigation and his personal life where he finds quite unexpectedly that his wife is having an affair. The other point of view that the book switches to is Alicia’s as she pens her thoughts to paper as a diary/journal.
As a reader, you get hooked to deciphering Alicia’s motive. Is she really the culprit? If so, what drove her to kill when no one around her seems to think she is capable of murder, definitely not shooting her husband five times in the face. As the viewpoints switch between her suspicions of someone lurking around the house and Theo meeting characters in Alicia’s life – her art gallery friend, her brother-in-law, her step brother, your doubts flit between these characters. Everyone seems to paint a picture that is almost immediately discredited when you read Alicia’s entry in her journal. The storyline where Theo finds the man who is responsible for his wife’s infidelity comes to a conclusion and the puzzle piece falls in place.
Here, the author reveals a twist so astonishing that it topples a row of dominoes in your head. Small details you didn’t think much about, get significant based on what you just read. This alone took the book to a whole new level for me.
The book continues on as you wonder if the new information would help Alicia’s case. Alicia’s diary reveals more and the reader now knows that she has been writing even at The Grove. She has managed to put the pieces together. The story gets a little slower from here. Is that really true or am I trying to compare the post-twist section with the actual twist, I can’t say.
However, that probably is the only reason I dock the book a star. All said, it is a great book that will keep you engaged. After having read a bunch of action thrillers, this was such a refreshing palette cleanser. Give it a read, it is quite the page turner.
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