HELENE FLOOD’S THERAPIST: A THRILLER WHOSE SOLUTION LIES BURIED IN WHAT MEMORIES CAN’T REVEAL

In the dark of the early morning, Sara Lathus’ husband Sigurd kisses her on the forehead, off early for a weekend with friends at a holiday cabin. A few hours later, he leaves a voicemail on her phone while she is working, telling her he’s arrived and all is well. Ten hours later, she gets a text from Sigurd’s friends, asking if she’s heard from him, since he was supposed to meet them that afternoon, but he still hasn’t arrived. And late in the evening, after some wine and in a fit of pique, Sara deletes the original voicemail.

That’s the opening of The Therapist, a psychological thriller with a twist: Sara is a psychologist and we’ve sat through her patient interviews between the crucial messages. In the hands of author Helene Flood, who is also a psychologist, Sara’s training and her own persistent self-examination is the driving force behind the story, to the point where the reader considers the old adage about doctors healing themselves, as well as the very real possibility that some of what Sara is narrating may not be exactly how it happened.

Which is what makes it fascinating. As a thriller the novel works because the materials for “solving” the mystery are there, almost like a classic whodunit. But because the reader becomes, in effect, a therapist…