Maybe because I couldn’t read it through like a book I missed this but I am confused when Allecia had the chance to hide the book in the painting. The last quarter of the book does begin to pick up, but it also jumped over to implausible territory to me and was a bit convoluted. I put off these inconsistencies as it just “appeared” that way depending which Alter was out at the time.

It’s an admirable attempt to use the trappings of a thriller to lure the audience into something cleverer and more challenging.But considering Alicia’s silence strictly within the confines of the novel’s universe, I don’t understand it. When he planned out the scene revealing Gabriel to be a cheater, he genuinely just wanted to out him.

Michaelides knew perfectly how to create intrigue and how to use dialogue with varying short and long paragraphs and short and long chapters to create the perfect pacing for this work. A mesmerising tale of obsession, vengeance and betrayal, expertly unpicking the threads of a marriage and the lies that bind. A long-time patient appears to be following her every move, and her daughter Lizzie is hiding a secret.

The blurring of boundaries between a therapist and patient is a no-no for good reasons, as Jane Shemilt's THE PATIENT shows in this twisty tale. The relationship felt forced to me, I found it hard to believe two people could both be madly in love after meeting twice.

We have a few ‘ugly’ characters who are either ‘ mad’ and or violent ( Elif, a ‘massive’ Turkish woman, who spends her time shouting or grunting because she is a patient and that’s how ‘ugly’ and mentally ill people behave. I think I'm going to wrap it up here, and please don't let my 3 star rating dissuade you from giving this one a try.

If you are promoting a book as a psychological thriller, there are two things which the author should be careful about. One is to get the thriller aspect correct, which the author had succeeded, and the second is to get the Psychological aspect right, which is where the aberration lies here. This leads Theo to learn more about Alicia's prior trauma (after her mother's suicide, Alicia father wished Alicia had died instead). She tells us she is very observant, that she has to be as a doctor, but she doesn’t seem to notice much of anything. 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.