3.5 stars from me
Step cautiously into Room 55… It’s cold, it’s clinical, it’s hard to know what is real – and you’ll never quite know what’s coming next.
Helena Kubicek Boye has crafted a world where appearances are everything and truths are buried deep. Anna Varga arrives at her dream job at the remote Säter Clinic full of hope, only to discover that the walls themselves seem to whisper secrets.
Patients whisper about Room 55. Anonymous notes appear with chilling warnings. But who is behind these secret messages, and why? Every revelation is partial, every truth elusive, and the story teases you along a razor’s edge between curiosity and dread.
The author captures the psychological claustrophobia of the clinic with a deft, restrained hand, letting paranoia, obsession, and fear drip slowly into your mind, so that by the end, you’re left both thrilled and unsettled.
I look forward to more in this series. My thanks to NetGalley, SAGA Egmont and the author for an ARC in return for an honest review.
Blurb: In the heart of Dalarna’s shadowy forests, the mind can be the most dangerous place of all.
Sweden’s most notorious clinic for forensic psychiatry Säter is hidden deep among the pines — a place where the country’s most violent offenders are sent when prison isn’t an option. For young psychologist Anna Varga, a position at the prestigious institution is the opportunity of a a fresh start, a career breakthrough, an escape from her past in Stockholm.
But behind the clinic’s cold walls, something is terribly wrong.
Patients whisper about Room 55. Anonymous notes appear with chilling warnings. And when a man is found dead under suspicious circumstances, Anna’s dream job spirals into a waking nightmare. Is someone watching her? Manipulating her? And what buried truths is the clinic so desperate to keep hidden?
A twisty, heart-pounding Scandi-noir thriller perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn’s “Sharp Objects”, Karin Fossum and Lars Kepler.
Read and Rated 