Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married 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 never speaks another word. This is a true story about identity and retribution, love and loss; it is about wanting to exist on your terms, even if that means hurting the people you once loved most. The Silent Patient is the first novel by Alex Michaelides, who has worked as an editor at Penguin Random House for over fifteen years.

One evening Alicia Berenson’s husband, Gabriel, returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face. She then locks herself in the bedroom and never speaks another word. The Silent Patient is the story of what happened that night, told in reverse-chronological order as detective Harry Evans investigates. What unfolds is a tense psychological thriller examining how past events can come back to haunt us, and how long lies can destroy relationships.

About The Silent Patient Book

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married 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 never speaks another word.

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any 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 why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him….

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.