The Huntress
By Kate Quinn
Pub. Harper Collins 2019
Pages 529 Price $16.99 paperback

This historical novel focuses on the mysterious effects and aftermath of World War II. It is has many twists and surprises.

It opens with a short prologue in which a mysterious woman in the autumn of 1945 in Austria, before the Nuremburg trials,  invites six comrades in for food and then takes them to the side of a lake and shoots them.The author writes that she thinks, “What I did was a mercy killing, but the victors would never think that.” After that brief introduction and ruthless episode, she runs  away into the chaotic world of the aftermath of World War II.

In April of 1946 a mysterious woman short of money comes into McBrides Antique shop in Boston, Massachusetts. The owner, a widower, is attracted to  her because of her beauty and aura of mystery and eventually invites her to his hem to have dinner and meet his seventeen- year- old daughter, Jordan McBride.Jordan wants to be a professional photographer and has her own darkroom in which she develops her own films. She likes the idea of her father’s interest in a lady friend and welcomes her at first into the family home.

Annelaise Webber brings her five- year- old daughter with her for the dinner into the McBride home and things go well until Jordan wants to take some photographs. Annelaise does not want any photos taken of her but Jordan takes them anyway. As they all take dishes away from the dining room table and look out the kitchen window seeing a lake and a meadow, Jordan mentions her father likes to fish and hunt. Annelaise says , “You hunt?” Jordan snaps a photo and got a strange image of the surprise on Annelaise’s face. Jordan’s father says,”Some women do not like hunting.” Annelaise remarks,”Not at all.”

That night Jordan cannot sleep. She comes down into her dark room and develops the photographs she has taken.  She wants to be like Margaret Burke White and is a serious photographer even at 17. One photograph of Annelaise is frightening. It shows a streak of cruelty in her face. Jordan becomes alarmed. However, Annelaise comes into the family and marries her father.

Meanwhile in 1950 in Cologne, Germany, Ian Graham, a journalist searching for escaped Nazi supporters with a team of Nazi hunters are looking for a woman called The Huntress.
Jordan has no idea about the background of Annelaise and the women become very close friends.Then Jordan’s father dies mysteriously and many unusual happenings occur. Yet, Jordan has become close to Annelaise’s daughter and considers her a sister. They have become a peaceful family unit on the inside.

But on the outside, the search for a famous woman, The Huntress, who worked for the Nazis and took many lives, buzzes around them. As the search becomes closer, Jordan becomes aware of immediate danger through her photographs. If you want to find out if the Huntress is caught and what happens to her, you will have to read the book. The writing is exciting, descriptive, and filled with believable dialogue. Just when you think you have figured everything out, a surprise happens. If you like surprises on every page, you will like this book.

***

The Silent Patient
by Alex Michaelides
Pub.Celadon Books 2019
Pages 325 Price $26.99

“You don’t need to be mad to work here, but it helps, is a sign here they used to have in offices,” says Professor Diomedes, Clinical Director at the Grove sanitarium.Theo Faber, a new young psychotherapist enters his office and likes his sense of humor. Diomedes is about 60, and is an experienced psychiatrist, who gives tactful advice, and has a quick, self- deprecating sense of humor. His basic responsibility is to keep the sanitarium running smoothly, give support to the staff, and expertly run group therapy sessions.

Theo is looking forward to working with Doimedes in the Grove sanitarium of England because he has been interested in one patient in the sanitarium which he has read about in newspapers over the years. Her name is Alicia Berenson. She killed her husband six years ago and has not uttered a word since the traumatic experience. Alicia was an artist, who was married to a well known fashion photographer. No one knows why she killed her husband, but she shot him five times in the face. She has been on heavy medication and can be violent but usually is silent and stays in the background of group therapy sessions.

Theo is determined that he is the one psychiatrist who can open up Alicia Berenson and find out why she will not talk. Talking is an important key in getting well and a goal in group therapy which Theo has led in other institutions.

Theo Faber, himself, grew up with an abused background. He was beaten as a child by his father and abandoned by his mother. So he has some psychiatric scars in his past, which is the real reason why he decided to go into psychiatry. However, when interviewed he replied,”I am interested in helping others.” He sounded very good and was hired.

Faber arranges to meet one on one with Alicia Berenson.Out of the blue, she attacks him and he has to call for emergency help. He gets patched up and has to report to Diomedes and the rest of the staff why he was alone with Alicia. They are furious that he arranged to meet Alicia alone without a second staff  member or orderly with him in the room which is required.

Faber defends her vicious attack as a symbol of communication. Faber says, ”Rage is a powerful form of communication. The other patients are zombies and vacant. Her attack tells us something.” The other psychiatrists question that theory. They think she was off her meds and out of her mind.

After a controversial discussion about taking Theo off Alicia’s case, Diomedes defends Theo and says, “Continue her care.” Diomedes gives him six weeks, although Theo has said it might take six months or a year.

Theo is exhausted and comes home to an empty apartment. He looks for his wife, Kathy, but apparently she is rehearsing in a play production. To relax Theo takes some marajuana which he has hidden behind the couch. He gets stoned and tips over his wife’s laptop and sees emails that are sexually provocative to BADBOY 22. He gets physically ill but says nothing to her and works at the sanitarium the next day.

Theo wonders what he is doing working in a sanitarium and why the attraction to Alicia. Diomedes thinks Alicia is a silent siren luring Theo to his doom. However, Theo continues to work with Alicia and explains therapy is a two-way street. He starts to tell Alicia his problems. Well, she is a good listener!!She refuses to talk. Maybe she will have compassion and open up. Her silence becomes a mirror reflecting back at him. A transference of identity takes place in this extraordinary story.The question of who is the patient occurs. One step in a positive direction is that Alicia gives Theo her diary. She begins to trust him.

Meanwhile Theo has to face Kathy, his own wife, at home and confront the fact that his wife has been having an affair. He has to make a decision to possibly leave her. Theo decides to remain silent and not leave her. Silence apparently is a key in Theo’s life  and a chosen way of survival, as it is in his patient, Alicia’s life. The concept of who is the patient occurs again and again in the reader’s mind as you read this book.

However, the author brings the reader right into believing the impossible.There are dual sets of activities in the story going on, both in the sanitarium, and in Theo’s life at home, outside the sanitarium. What is reality? How is reality handled?

Theo is haunted by Alicia and searches everywhere for more information about her life including visiting the gallery in which she once showed her work. The “Alcestis” is a famous work Alicia once did and Theo had seen it six years ago. He revisits the gallery now and meets the owner Jean-Felix Martin. Theo interviews him about his relationship with Alicia. Martin invites him to see some of her paintings.They look at some paintings.

Theo asks to see “Alcestis,” her most famous painting. It is a painting of Alicia naked with a red paintbrush in her hand and nothing on a canvas in front of her. They look at the painting and Theo says, ”It is impossible to read.” Martin, the gallery owner, says, ”That is the point. It is a painting about silence.” Martin tells Theo, “If you really want to get Alicia to talk, get her some paints. That is the only way she will talk to you.”

In summary, the characters in this book are truly believable but frightening. The dialogue is natural and realistic in  a twisted and way out plot. The action moves smoothly on every page. However, the plot is extremely complicated with many, many unexpected events. If you like unusual psychological thrillers, and want to find out if Alicia ever talks to Theo, and why Theo is so interested in Alicia, you will have to read this fascinating book. It is a spellbinding mystery on the level of an Alfred Hitchcock film  with frightening twists which could have happened. It was hard to remember this work is a novel, an exciting work of fiction, not reality, because the writing style seemed very real to me. I could not put it down.

— Pat Davidson Reef is a graduate of Emerson College in Boston. She received her Masters Degree at the University of Southern Maine.She taught English and Art History at Catherine McAuley High for many years.She now teaches at the University of Southern Maine in Portland in the  Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Classic Films. She recently wrote a children’s book,”Dahlov Ipcar Artist, and is now writing another children’s book “Bernard Langlais Revisited.”

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