MURDER, MYTHS AND MEDIEVAL MISTS
In Greek mythology, Psyche is the goddess of the soul. Words like psychology and psychotherapy, studies and practices that deal with the subconscious, are rooted in her name. Psychotherapy, like mythology, uses narrative to impose order on unstructured phenomena in the world and in our lives. And, like mythology, it offers ways to represent events whose origins and meanings are not easily understood.
When we read a mystery novel, we try to impose order where there is confusion, to look for patterns that illuminate the problem space, to fit together the pieces of a puzzle. Alex Michaelides uses both the tools of psychotherapy and the motifs of Greek mythology in his new novel, “The Maidens,” to lead us on a journey from confusion to order. Along the way, we encounter tension-filled missteps, promising leads and complicating distractions.
Marianna Andros is a London psychotherapist who specializes in treating patients in group settings.
Alone and lonely, she is mourning the death of her husband the previous year. Her niece, Zoe, more like a daughter than a niece, is a university student at Cambridge. When Marianna receives an anxious phone call from Zoe about a missing friend, she makes quick preparations to travel to Cambridge. Her arrival on campus coincides with the start of a series of murders targeting girls in Zoe’s circle.
“The Maidens” follows on the heels of Michaelides’ successful first novel, “The Silent Patient,” a mystery based on the developing relationship between a therapist and his patient, a woman who murdered her husband and has not spoken since. Readers of “The Silent Patient” will recognize themes that appear in both books: references to Greek myths and tragedies whose storylines reiterate events in the novel, explanations of psychological phenomena such as transference and countertransference that illuminate plot points, and, at the heart of the stories, a main character who is a skilled but troubled psychotherapist.
Setting and atmosphere are important elements of a mysterynovel and the author has wisely chosen to situate most of the action on the grounds of the Cambridge campus with its medieval buildings, its shaded courtyards, and its expansive common rooms lit by flickering fires. The river is a constant, silent presence, its banks offering multiple opportunities
for lonely walks amid shadowsand mist.
Michaelides manages other elements on the mystery writer’s checklist skillfully as well. The precise pacing contributes significantly to the novel’s forward momentum. Hints and revelations are interleaved with diversions and smokescreens. There is no shortage of characters who may or may not be hiding something and some who are just downright creepy. Indeed, there are several characters who justifiably deserve our distrust.
This brings me, however, to my one criticism: our main character, Marianna, is portrayed as an extremely fragile, and even damaged, individual. Yes, she lost her husband a year earlier. And, yes, she is a sensitive introvert who has survived a lonely childhood. But the paranoia and obsessiveness of her inner life does not always square with the competent professional we know her to be. Being privy, as we are, to her innermost thoughts and reactions can feel claustrophobic. Tension and dread do indeed play an appropriate role in the unraveling of a mystery but occupying the mind of a person whose thoughts are so narrowly focused made me feel at times that I was reading a character who had gotten away from her author.
Nonetheless, “The Maidens” is a taut psychological thriller with a finely tuned pace and a murky undercurrent of motivations. The large cast of suspects performs their roles against a richly described backdrop of gothic arches, medieval towers and sun-dappled lawns. Michaelides returns to the mythology motifs again and again to accentuate the progression of the novel. And, like the story arc in a Greek tragedy, the details of the central mystery unfold slowly but assuredly, always just beyond the hero’s grasp.