Alex Michaelides

Alex Michaelides was born and raised in Cyprus and studied English literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, before earning an MA in screenwriting from the American Film Institute. He worked as a screenwriter before turning to fiction; his screen credits include The Con Is On and The Devil You Know.

His novels are psychological mysteries shaped by classical tragedy and the tightly controlled plotting of writers such as Agatha Christie. Therapy, obsession and deceptive storytelling recur throughout his work. The Silent Patient draws on Euripides’ Alcestis: after painter Alicia Berenson kills her husband, she refuses to speak, leaving psychotherapist Theo Faber determined to discover her motive.

Published in 2019, The Silent Patient was Michaelides’s debut and entered The New York Times bestseller list at number one. It won the 2019 Goodreads Choice Award for Mystery & Thriller and was optioned for a film adaptation. Michaelides followed it with The Maidens, a Cambridge-set mystery influenced by the story of Iphigenia, and The Fury, a murder mystery narrated by playwright Elliot Chase and set on a private Greek island.

Start with The Silent Patient. Its locked-room-like psychiatric setting, alternating accounts and central puzzle offer the clearest introduction to Michaelides’s blend of psychotherapy, Greek drama and twist-driven suspense.