The Silent Patient - Alex Michaelides

Written by Alex Michaelides
Read by Jack Hawkins, Louise Brealey
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Release date: February 5, 2019
Duration: 08:43:57

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….

Strong performances by two British narrators lift this psychological thriller. Louise Brealey is outstanding as Alicia Berenson, celebrity artist, husband-killer, and silent patient in a mental facility. Jack Hawkins is just as good as Theo Faber, a criminal psychotherapist with his own emotional baggage. Each narrator also handles lesser roles. The story’s plot belongs to the “what-happened-before-the-crime” variety. Brealey captures Alicia’s joyful early love for her husband, but soon listeners hear in her voice the unhappy changes in the marriage, and in Alicia herself. Hawkins, as the obsessed Faber, is much more forceful as the character negotiates his own relationships, hospital politics, and Alicia’s defenses. Both narrators capture these traits nicely. G.S. � AudioFile 2018