Title: The Therapist
Author: Helene Flood
Publisher: Quercus
Synopsis:
At first it’s the lie that hurts.
A voicemail from her husband tells Sara he’s arrived at the holiday cabin. Then a call from his friend confirms he never did.
She tries to carry on as normal, teasing out her clients’ deepest fears, but as the hours stretch out, her own begin to surface. And when the police finally take an interest, they want to know why Sara deleted that voicemail.
To get to the root of Sigurd’s disappearance, Sara must question everything she knows about her relationship.
Could the truth about what happened be inside her head?
My Review
The Therapist is a fun, solid psychological thriller featuring Sara, a psychologist whose husband, Sigurd, heads off to meet his friends for a weekend in the woods but, according to said friends, never actually arrives… despite calling her to say he’d just got there.
As Sara begins to untangle what really happened to Sigurd, and his movements in the lead up to his disappearance, she finds out that not everything in their marriage was as she thought… but as someone is evidently set on preventing her discovering the truth, at times Sara seems to start to doubt herself. Is she starting to recall some of her past memories incorrectly?
This is gripping Nordic-noir, and it’ll keep you guessing – what actually happened to Sigurd? Was he hiding anything? Can we rely on Sara as the perspective we’re seeing (a potentially unreliable narrator is something I always enjoy in a book)? And many more which I won’t list here to avoid giving anything away!
I raced through The Therapist quickly, despite some parts feeling like they could have been edited down a little – it’s definitely more of a slow-burner than a high-octane thriller, but this had no effect on how addictive it was – this book kept me engrossed throughout. The translation by Alison McCullough is also excellent.
Definitely recommended!
Rating: 4/5
Many thanks to Quercus, who provided a copy of this novel on which I chose to write an honest and unbiased review.
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