PSYCHO THRILLERS

THEY ALL FALL DOWN by Tammy Cohen (Penguin £7.99)

sETTiNG a story in a psychiatric facility is always going to be risky. Apart from the dangers of too many unreliable narrators, there is the big problem of getting the tone right. But Cohen pulls it off.

This is a powerful psychological murder mystery written with compassion and candour. hannah, the main narrator, is a patient for reasons — gradually and skilfully revealed — that involve her baby. she is convinced that other inmates are being murdered.

Cohen manages to cram in a cast of wildly different characters without turning the book into a tribute to one Flew over The Cuckoo’s Nest. And she successfully resolves the mysteries while reminding us of the fine line between what’s normal and what’s not.

THE HIDDEN ROOM by Stella Duffy

(Virago £16.99) LAuRiE and Martha are a same-sex couple happily bringing up their children in the English countryside when a man from Laurie’s past turns up out of the blue.

The hidden room of the title refers to the safe place in their house where Laurie goes to escape the memories of her abuse as a child living in an American cult.

Duffy’s gentle, considered prose style is a powerful contrast to the violent content.

This isn’t a book for everyone — the flashbacks to Laurie’s childhood are particularly challenging to read — but Duffy doesn’t duck the issues and we are left considering the cost of keeping secrets, and the hideous complexities of seeking revenge.

THE GOOD DAUGHTER by Karin Slaughter

(HarperCollins £20) Two teenage daughters of the only liberal lawyer in a small town in redneck America survive, but never recover from, a brutal attack and the murder of their mother in their own home.

The separate secrets of how the girls survive and what really happened that day are kept hidden — and finally revealed — with thrilling effect.

The author’s sense of place — think Trumpland — is key to the book’s appeal, and slaughter also has a gift for one-liners: ‘he had muscles in places that men in their 40s had generally replaced with beer and fried meat’, or — and key to the plot — ‘a Democrat is a Republican who has been through the American justice system’.

it’s a great read and a fine, accidental education in the mind of modern America.