Alex Michaelides

In an effort to avoid paying off a massive gambling debt to a notorious mobster in England, a couple flees to Los Angeles and hatch a jewel theft plot.

Kathryn Vale is a reclusive ex-movie star with a dark secret and a daughter hoping to follow in her mother's movie-star footsteps. When Kathryn attempts to make a career comeback, she is threatened by an anonymous blackmailer. The resulting events force Kathryn to confront the truth about herself and those around her.

The thriller centers on Alicia Berenson, a famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer whose perfect life includes a grand house overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening, her husband returns home late from a fashion shoot, and she shoots him five times in the face and then never speaks another word. Alicia’s refusal to talk or give any kind of explanation casts her into notoriety, the price of her art skyrockets and she, the silent patient, resides 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 the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations — a search for the truth that threatens to consume him.