It’s National Hot Dog Day. And since I’m completely outta franks, I better do my level-best grandstanding here and tell you about one hot dogger of an author. I triple dawg dare you to find a more red-hot novelist than Alex Michaelides right now. He’s definitely puttin’ 5 bright stars all over the psychological thriller category. You know I’m a huge Jane Harper fan, but the Greek may have her beat. (Not that we can’t love them all; we can.) Michaelides’s debut novel The Silent Patient was lights-out good. I have yet to recommend his New York Times bestseller to someone who doesn’t return the book with wicked speed and mouth agape. The ending was one of the best I’ve ever read. This guy believes in the element of surprise. From his own lips: “I love that feeling of reaching the end of a book and suddenly realizing you’ve been viewing the whole thing the wrong way up. I find that really fascinating.”
You know what I find fascinating? When an author knocks a debut novel out of the park—like Hank Aaron home-run stuff—and can give the world a follow-up that is equally compelling. And amazing. Michaelides’ latest, The Maidens, the story he conceived during a little pandemic, is another big whodunnit. Huge actually. Of course, I knew not to expect the obvious; SP taught me that. But the non-basketball, equally Greek Freak kept me guessing as to who the murderer of several female Cambridge students was??? And why? Their violent deaths seemed fairly random, with little in common with one exception: they were all part of a small cult following their Greek Tragedy professor, Edward Fosca. Their name? The Maidens. (I love how Michaelides tied in Greek mythology—it was intoxicating for this humanities major’s heart.) I’m with Lucy Foley, author of The Guest List, The Maidens is “a deliciously dark, elegant, utterly compulsive read―with a twist that blew my mind.” If you’re looking for a masterful, intricate, knife-edged plot-driven book, go read this!
Posted by Tracy