The Maidens by Alex Michaelides - Reviewed by Adam Colclough

 

W&N (10 Jun. 2021) £14.99 Hbk

 

Still grief stricken over the loss of her husband Mariana Andros is drawn back to Cambridge, where they met as undergraduates, when a friend of her niece is murdered. 

This is the first in a series of killings, the victims are all members of ‘the Maidens’, a group of students drawn into the orbit of charismatic academic Edward Fosca. As the murders continue and the police run out of leads Mariana becomes ever more convinced that Fosca is a killer and that her niece could be his next victim.

 

There is something pleasingly old school, possibly even golden age, about this second novel from the author of the hugely successful The Silent Patient. For all its location among the bicycles and dreaming spires of Cambridge and use of clues hidden in quotes from Greek tragedies Michaelides has delivered a very modern tale of suspense and psychological torment.

 

He is all too aware that the most dangerous secrets are the ones we keep from ourselves. A truth that the golden age writers towards whom Michaelides makes a discreet nod would have been either unaware of or would have thought wasn’t really cricket.

 

In line with this he gives Mariana a back story that might be nudging her perceptions of events towards paranoia and makes for an abundance of suspenseful situations. He is aided in this by the atmosphere of a Cambridge college, with its arcane ceremonies and endless dimly lit passages, the latter all the better for someone to, maybe, stalk his protagonist along.

 

This is a solid follow up to a successful debut from a writer who knows how to twist the piano wires of his readers nerves.

Alex Michaelides was born and raised in Cyprus. He has a MA in English Literature from Trinity College, Cambridge University, and a MA in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. The Silent Patient was his first novel. It spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list and sold in a record-breaking 49 countries. He lives in London.

Adam Colclough lives and works in the West Midlands, he writes regularly for a number of websites, one day he will get round to writing a book for someone else to review.