The Therapist by B.A. Paris

​I was led to this book by the ‘bestseller’ hype around previous novels by the author and the fact that I could download it and try it for free.

After knowing Leo for a relatively short time Alice has married Leo. The couple move to a well-to-do private neighbourhood where fellow residents deem friendly enough. However, we learn that one of Alice’s former neighbours – Nina Maxwell – died in suspicious circumstances, apparently killed by her husband.

Alice feels uneasy about both this and experiences anxiety in her own home which should have provided the stable existence the newly married couple have been striving for. A degree of jeopardy is injected early in the story regarding Leo, which then spreads to other residents living in ‘The Circle’ as Alice becomes an increasingly driven amateur sleuth as she attempts to find out what really happened to Nina.

Having read that last paragraph back it sounds quite intriguing, doesn’t it? I did have my own suspicions about who really did commit the dastardly deed – which is why we read books like these isn’t it? I also guessed which of the talking heads was actually ‘The Therapist,’ with their observations being recorded anonymously at key parts of the story. 

I was wrong on both counts: my guesses and the nature of the book. There are certainly junctions in the text where the suspense is heightened, but these usually come after long stretches of mindless motorway reading. I think my main problem was that I didn’t really believe in Alice as an investigator, given that she seemed unable to work through some of the other characters’ nuances, went headfirst with a thread and then seemed to watch quite helplessly as that part of the plot’s cloth proceeded to unravel before her (and our) own eyes.

I found some of the characters two-dimensional when Alice was trying to make them more complex than they really were. I suppose their intended middle-class luvviness rendered them less worthy of our sympathy and thus also for Alice who so desperately wanted to live the same lifestyle as them. Wanted so much to be like them.

I have striven for character-led stories in my own fiction, but also tried to craft them such that, if you’re still there at the end, you will be satisfied or even surprised by their conclusion. I went to a playwriting course in Scarborough more than thirty years ago and learned that shaping the stage for the performers to act and speak on was as important as anything they subsequently did or said. If you didn’t believe in or care about the environment, you were going to become bored quickly. Even if you stuck with it, either a forensically well-planned or wildly surprising ending was essential for leaving you wanting more. In this particular case I didn’t.

I probably will download another book by this author, but the ‘bestseller’ hype so beloved of book marketeers has – like part of the hotel we were staying in all those years ago – once again fallen over the cliff of reason. Perhaps that was the edgiest thing about it.

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