The key to writing a great psychological thriller is leading the reader down a vividly colored garden path that holds a trail of clues for the story narrator, along with the reader, to discover. The clues are not so much bread crumbs as they are bread dust. Particle by particle an understanding develops. This search for understanding is the most fickle of question: the need to know why.
In twenty-one pages, author Alex Michaelides' prose depicts an intensely colored landscape of a grisly murder of a fashion photographer. The undoubted murderess, his wife, Alicia, is a gifted artist, who turns mute after the crime. Her only statement was a self-portrait which she titles, "Alecestis."
I'm not ashamed to admit I had to look name up. Knowing the story of Alecestis does nothing to explain a motive...in fact, it makes the motive murkier.
Except for a prologue which casts doubts on Alicia's love for her husband, the story is told by a forensic psychologist and psychotherapist Theo Faber. The author paints a chilling portrait of Theo's childhood that is so unnerving, it should come with a trigger warning.
Theo becomes fascinated with Alicia. He's obsessed and needs to decipher her self-portrait and decode the motive for the murder. He applies for a job and is hired at the facility to which Alicia has been sentenced.
And that is where the excerpt leaves off.
So here I am, having inhaled enough particles of mystery to want--no, to CRAVE more. Through her character Theo, Alex Michaelides infected me with the obsession to know
WHY????
That's why this is A Must Read.
In twenty-one pages, author Alex Michaelides' prose depicts an intensely colored landscape of a grisly murder of a fashion photographer. The undoubted murderess, his wife, Alicia, is a gifted artist, who turns mute after the crime. Her only statement was a self-portrait which she titles, "Alecestis."
I'm not ashamed to admit I had to look name up. Knowing the story of Alecestis does nothing to explain a motive...in fact, it makes the motive murkier.
Except for a prologue which casts doubts on Alicia's love for her husband, the story is told by a forensic psychologist and psychotherapist Theo Faber. The author paints a chilling portrait of Theo's childhood that is so unnerving, it should come with a trigger warning.
Theo becomes fascinated with Alicia. He's obsessed and needs to decipher her self-portrait and decode the motive for the murder. He applies for a job and is hired at the facility to which Alicia has been sentenced.
And that is where the excerpt leaves off.
So here I am, having inhaled enough particles of mystery to want--no, to CRAVE more. Through her character Theo, Alex Michaelides infected me with the obsession to know
WHY????
That's why this is A Must Read.