Review by Jonathan Wilkins of "The Therapist's Daughter" by Megan Taylor

My usual thriller and mystery oeuvre is Nordic noir; apart from that I do love a Golden Age mystery thriller  I usually ignore British crime thrillers as I find them lazy, prosaic and trope-ridden. The alcoholic / womanising / heartbroken / secretive detective on a moral crusade is, for me, boring and a concept that it seems writers cannot avoid, so when I started reading The Therapist's Daughter I have to be honest it was with low expectations.

But the book defied my expectations. The Therapist's Daughter is an intricately woven, incredibly deceptive work that commands the reader’s attention.

My usual reading base is the cosy Royal Oak in Kirby Muxloe and on three visits I was chilled to the bone by the plot of The Therapist's Daughter. It is psychologically challenging as befits a tale about a psychotherapist's daughter. What an irony that the lead character, Caitlin, seems to be the most damaged of all the protagonists.

We are led down so many paths that at times it is hard to imagine where they lead, and that is the whole point, as through the multiple points of view and recollections of past and present, we are taken on a twisted journey to the final truth. Or is it? Even when we accept that we know the answers to the cleverly labyrinthine plot we are thrown off guard and off-kilter as a new avenue opens up.

There may have been a murder and a convicted murderer, but who is the true villain? Do we meet them at the end? Is a life-long love fulfilled or is it to be scattered into the air along with the protagonist's hopes and dreams? The misdirection is constantly bewildering, though never takes the reader away from the central plot lines. We have to discover our own truth as well as the characters'.

And there are so many characters, all so different, so roundly described and so easily shaped into the narrative. All are believable, most are easy to like, all have their challenges and faults, all make up the whole.

This truly is a "must read" book, well-written and easy to read. Challenging and welcoming, it interrogates the past and the present and as we career to the denouement, even in front of the Royal Oak's fire, we shiver and ask again. "Who was the killer?"

About the reviewer

Jonathan Wilkins is 69. He is married to the gorgeous Annie with two wonderful sons. He was a teacher for twenty years, a Waterstones’ bookseller and coached women’s basketball for over thirty years before taking up writing seriously. Nowadays he takes notes for students with Special Needs at Leicester and Warwick Universities. He has had a work commissioned by the UK Arts Council and several pieces published traditionally as well as on-line. He has had poems in magazines and anthologies, art galleries, studios, museums and at Huddersfield Railway Station. He loves writing poetry. For his MA, he wrote a crime novel, Utrecht Snow. He followed it up with Utrecht Rain, and is now writing a third part. He is currently writing a crime series, Poppy Knows Best, set at the end of the Great War and into the early 1920s.

You can read more about The Therapist's Daughter by Megan Taylor on Creative Writing at Leicester here.