They All Fall Down

In this tense psychological thriller from British author Cohen (Dying for Christmas), Hannah, a young married woman living in London, did something bad that has led to her confinement at the Meadows, a private psychiatric clinic in the country. Hannah’s psychiatrist, Dr. Oliver Roberts—to her “guru, Svengali, saint, sage, saviour”—is disturbed by her insistence that her fellow patients are being murdered. Despite efforts to persuade Hannah that the deaths were unfortunate suicides, neither the staff nor her family can get Hannah to drop the matter and focus on her recovery. Corrinne, Hannah’s mother, hopes to assuage her daughter’s fears by looking into Hannah’s suspicions about Dr. Roberts and his past. As the evidence builds against the psychiatrist and those around him, Corinne must decide whom to trust: her daughter and her fragile sense of reality or the professionals at the Meadows. Cohen convincingly portrays Hannah’s shaky belief in her own perceptions and Corinne’s determination to risk all to help her child. Only the tangled ending disappoints. Agent: Felicity Blunt, Curtis Brown. (Mar.)