Book Review: The Patient's Secret

Stories of picture-perfect family hiding appalling, terrifying secrets are nothing new. To this canon of domestic thrillers joins Loreth Anne White's The Patient's Secret. Loosely based on a horrific familicide that took place in Canada in 2006, the events lend the story an immediate urgency, acting as a fulcrum that sets in motion an engrossing tale of twists and turns. It revolves around Lily, a therapist, who leads the life of her dreams with her psychology professor husband Tom and their two children. But a crack emerges in that sweet exterior when Tom finds the body of a female jogger on the beach and he becomes the prime suspect, shattering the illusion she had built for herself and the things she had worked so hard to cover up and move on threaten to bubble up once again. Soon enough, the plot quickens and thickens, cleverly blending in layers of troubled shared pasts and explosive secrets into a potent, intense read.