In this way, and guided by Theo’s cynical narration, Michaelides builds an engaging mystery. Whether it is Alicia’s brother who is being threatened by loan sharks and wants her to bail him out or the owner of the gallery that she has always used who has just been told she is moving her exhibitions elsewhere, even a fellow psychiatrist comes into the frame. The diary entries feel a little too mannered but Michaledis uses them to channel his inner Agatha Christie as everyone that Theo questions turns out to have a motive for destroying Alicia’s life. These encounters are juxtaposed with entries from Alicia’s diary which cast a very different light on the characters that Theo meets. He goes outside the facility to find people who knew her and members of her family. He continues to question the story told about her and soon starts to push the boundaries of a consulting psychologist.

Theo takes on Alicia’s case and despite Alicia physically attacking him keeps the sessions going. As the novel progresses, Theo also starts to recount the breakdown of his marriage and the impacts that this had on him.

After saying he became a psychologist to help people he admits that this is “bullshit”, that he became a psychologist because he himself is damaged and it draws him to working with damaged people – “we study psychology to heal ourselves” he says before chronicling his abusive childhood and personal therapy sessions. In his narration he is upfront about his motives.

When The Silent Patient opens, Theo has managed to get a transfer from Broadmoor, where he was working to The Grove, a private institution where Alicia is serving her time. Theo Faber, a psychologist and narrator of this tale is a little obsessed with Alicia’s story and condition and organises himself so that he can treat her. She has not spoken since the gruesome murder, her only communication being a single self-portrait entitled Alcestis. When The Silent Patient opens, Alicia Berenson is in a psychiatric ward, locked away for killing her husband. She was eventually restored to life but following this she never spoke again. In particular the story of Alcestis who volunteered to die in place of her husband and was sent to Hades. Alex Michaelides’ debut thriller The Silent Patient takes some of its cues from Greek mythology.

Alcestis the silent patient