Storytime
EHTUA
STRALIANWOM
EN
’S
W
EE- YLK
MAY
2019THE SILENT PATIENT
by Alex Michaelides,
Hachette
A troubled, avant-garde
artist, Alicia Berenson, is
found guilty of murdering
her photographer
husband, Gabriel.
Her defence pleads
diminished responsibility.
She is locked up in a
psychiatric unit, where
she’s not spoken for
six years. Maverick
psychotherapist Theo
Faber is the only person
able to make in-roads in
this baffling case. Three
men in Alicia’s life raise
alarms – the brother
in-law who loved her,
the gallerist after her
valuable paintings and
the cousin with gambling
debts. Theo makes
unsolicited approaches
to Alicia’s family: “my
first professional
transgression ... setting
an unfortunate precedent
for what followed. I
should have stopped
there. In many ways
my fate was already
decided – like in a Greek
tragedy.” Hold on to
your seat for this ride.THE MOTHER-IN-LAW
by Sally Hepworth, Pan
Macmillan
Oliver and Lucy have
three gorgeous kids;
Archie, Harriet and Edie.
Oliver’s mother, Diana, is
cold and mean, but runs
a refugee charity. She is
from money, but if Oliver
or sister Nettie need
help, it’s soft dad Tom
who says yes. The
narrative darts back
and forth – Diana
reveals a baby born out
of wedlock; Lucy the
time she accidentally
struck her mother-in-law
when Harriet was injured
during a Grandma “Dido”
babysit. And the crux of
the book is Diana’s death.
It appears she has taken
her own life, but until
a coroner rules out
suicide, police treat it
as a potential homicide.
They are all hiding
something. Diana
refused Nettie financial
help and Oliver is near
bankrupt. So when a
cushion is missing and
an autopsy reveals
suffocation, who can
be trusted?ALL THE TEARS IN
CHINA by Sulari Gentill,
Pantera
Uncle Rowly draws
attention and not
because of his Chrysler
Airflow motor car.
Rowland Sinclair is a
scourge in 1930s Sydney
for being a “Commie-
loving traitor”. His brother
Wilfred runs the family’s
wool business. But in this,
Gentill’s ninth Rowland
Sinclair Mysteries book,
aesthetic younger
brother Rowland must
represent the family
fortune in China. “Take
your unemployed, lefty
friends if you must,” says
Wilf. “Believe me, you’d
be the last man I’d send
if your name wasn’t
Sinclair.” Rowland’s tailors
attend to his Shanghai
wardrobe, and those of
his arty pal housemates;
sculptress Edna, poet
Milton and painter Clyde,
who are to join the luxe
jaunt. But when the “taxi
girl” dancer Rowland
jazz-waltzed with for
a pound is found dead
in his Cathay Hotel suite,
he is a suspect.