I love “unputdownable psychological thrillers,” and because I was a huge fan of B.A. Paris’s Behind Closed Doors (2016) and I enjoyed  Bring Me Back (2018) and The Dilemma (2020), I was happy to receive a copy of The Therapist from St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley in return for my honest review.

One of the things I love about this author is she is the mother of five girls and waited til they were grown to start her writing career in earnest. She has made up for lost time, with a string of entertaining books that seem to feature unlikeable millenials in weird, often dangerous situations. 

The featured couple in this story are Alice and Leo, annoyingly self-centered millennials who are moving their year-long long distance relationship into a new phase, as they move together into a house Leo bought for them in a fancy gated community. Alice is enraged when she finds out that the reason he got a great on the house is it was the scene of a horrific murder of a previous resident. She is so creeped out by this she can’t bear to stay in the house, and she is just generally freaked by everything. The neighbors are a bit puzzling, and you KNOW there is something off about the whole thing, but it isn’t clear exactly what or who is the cause. Ms. Paris does her usual excellent job throwing out clues that generally lead nowhere, and sometimes lead to the next clue. Alice is a sympathetic character as she struggles with her growing suspicion of Leo and his “coercive control” and she begins a relentless search for the truth about what happened in the house. 

I’m giving this one five stars because I got totally lost in it for an entire day, and that is just what we all need during this pandemic. Great buildup of suspense and (for me) a satisfying resolution.