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The Maidens: Review

We all keep secrets. Even from ourselves.

By G. A. MckayPublished 2 years ago 14 min read
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Author: Alex Michaelides

I should start by saying, I have a lot to say about this book. I should also say that this is the first book by Alex Michaelides that I have read. Michaelides is known for his debut novel The Silent Patient which was No.1 on the New York Times Best Seller list upon its release in 2019. Since finishing The Maidens I have ordered his debut novel and it arrives tomorrow.

Although I am intrigued to read more of his work, it does not mean I loved everything about The Maidens. In fact, a lot about the book bothered me, and I am curious whether anyone else agrees with any of the points I am going to make.

As a psychological thriller, I fully expected all the twists and turns, and the 'shocking' twist ending. However, the ending did not feel as much like a shocking twist, as it felt like the end to a completely different story.

The blurb on the back of the book reads:

The Maidens are Cambridge University’s most exclusive society, whose members are selected by the charismatic professor of Greek tragedy, Edward Fosca. When one of the Maidens is murdered, grieving young therapist Mariana Andros is drawn back to the idyllic campus where she was once herself a student. Because beneath the university’s ancient traditions and beauty is a web of secrets, jealousy and lies. And when the killer threatens the person she loves most, Mariana will give anything to stop them - even her own life…

An intriguing introduction to the story, yes? I thought so too, and for the most part, the book delivers on this intrigue. However, I think it may have lost its way toward the end. I’ll explain the plot in a bit more detail now, and if you have already read the book then you can skip this next paragraph.

The Maidens is told in the third person from the point of view of Mariana, a psychotherapist who lives in London. One night, after one of her group therapy sessions, she receives a disconcerting call from her niece, Zoe. Zoe tells her that her friend Tara has been brutally murdered on campus at Cambridge University, Mariana’s alma mater. Mariana decides to set off to Cambridge as soon as possible, much to the dismay of one of her clients, Henry, an incredibly fragile man with severe mental problems. Despite this, Mariana leaves. As Zoe’s parents died when she was young, Mariana became her legal guardian and was the closest thing Zoe had to a mother. She felt it was her duty to be there.

While making the journey to Cambridge Mariana begins to reminisce about her time there when she was a student, where she met her late husband Sebastian. Sebastian died a year prior from drowning off the coast of a Greek Island, Naxos. While on the train Mariana meets Fred, a rather charismatic guy who expresses a great interest in her. He tells her that he is something of a psychic and that he believes they will meet again soon.

Once at Cambridge Mariana is brought into the thick of a murder investigation, and cannot contain her own curiosity enough to stop herself from asking questions. Her suspicion is quickly set on Professor Edward Fosca, who taught the murder victim, and is the head of this supposed secret society on campus. The victim, Tara, was believed to be a part of this private group.

Mariana begins her own investigation into the murder, with the help of old professors and her old university colleagues she went to school with. Evidence against Fosca starts piling up high (a little too high) and Mariana refuses to suspect anyone else, despite the fact that Fosca has an alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the murder. As we delve deeper into the story two more murders occur, all of the victims being prior members of the Maidens.

At this point in the story, Michaelides has introduced a lot of characters, and simultaneously, a lot of suspects. So far we have Henry, her patient; Fred, the man she met on the train; Edward Fosca, the professor; Conrad, the first victim's boyfriend who is the first to be suspected; Morris, the head porter of the campus lodgings, who Mariana sees having sex with one of the Maidens in a graveyard; and Elsie, a campus bedder cleaner who was responsible for the victim's rooms. All of these characters express untoward behavior and are given not-so-subtle hints for possible suspicion.

Now, I understand that you need a few suspects for a whodunit story, but there seemed to be an excess of them in this book. There were too many, especially when almost all of the evidence that had been collected at this point, suggests that it is Professor Fosca. However, because the evidence was so blatant and there was so much of it, we know that it most likely will not be Fosca, because a writer is not going to give away the answers like candy.

Michaelides was using two different forms of misdirection, one; the abundance of evidence on Fosca, and two; the abundance of other possible suspects who had no clear motive. So at this point, as the reader, you are suspecting anyone and everyone. However, this did not feel like clever writing to throw off the reader, it felt messy and a little lazy. That was one of the first things that bothered me.

The Rape of a Goddess

The second thing that bothered me was the constant referrals to Greek mythology. Now I love mythology, don’t get me wrong, and the way Michaelides was using it within his story was interesting, however, it felt more like a crutch than a creative weave between myth and reality. Every time there was a twist in the story or a new lead in the investigation, it was compared to a Greek tragedy. The story was saturated with it. It did not need to be mentioned every couple of pages, it needed subtlety.

Speaking of being mentioned constantly, the characters' names were said ALL. THE. TIME. This is probably a far more biased critique, but one of my pet peeves in writing, whether it's in books or movies and tv shows, is when characters are saying each other's names constantly. Even worse than that, is when they have a character telling someone they love them and always using their full name. I love you, Karen Walker. UGH. It’s so cringy, I hate it.

See the photo below and tell me that’s not excessive use of a character's name.

A page from The Maidens

I digress, let's move on to the second half of the book. Now, since I have laid down several negative aspects of the story and writing, I’m going to tell you something I loved.

There is a scene where Mariana is invited to dine with Fosca in his private rooms. At this point in the story, Mariana is almost certain that Fosca is the murderer, and Fosca knows of her suspicions. So, the conversation they have over dinner is perfectly written and paced with an underlying tension and suspicion from both parties. When I was reading it I could picture it so perfectly in my head, the setting, the way they were sitting, the pace of their conversation, etc. The great thing about this scene is that Michaelides does not rush it, he spans it over an entire chapter, and it’s perfect. Chefs kiss. In addition to that, I will say that this book is very well-paced, and brilliantly builds the tension of such a sinister plot.

As we get into the second half of the book Michaelides begins to drop a few suspects. Elsie just slowly disappears from the plot and is no longer thought about. Henry arrives at Cambridge, having followed Mariana there, and threatens to kill himself right in front of her, for which he is stopped and is then arrested before being taken into psychiatric care. Morris is seemingly innocent other than being wrapped up in some blackmail with Fosca, and because Conrad was in police custody when the second murder occurred, he is cleared of all charges.

Although I still believe there are too many characters, and therefore suspects (because they are one and the same in this book), most of them have at least a small tie to the ending. Apart from one. Henry is a complete waste of a character. He does not drive the plot in any way shape or form. Michaelides could remove him from the story and it wouldn’t change anything other than his presence. The only contact he has is with Mariana, and his only motivation seems to be to scare her and stalk her. He has no ties to any other characters and has absolutely no influence on the story, other than being an additional character with severe mental health issues (like practically everyone else in the book).

There are several chapters written in the first person which are suggested to be written by the killer. He talks about his childhood, growing up on a farm with an abusive father, and a deserting mother. It gives us insight into his mind. As the reader, we are led to believe that it is Fosca. During his dinner with Mariana, where she is attempting to psychoanalyse him, he tells her that he grew up on a farm in New York with an abusive father. However, later in the book, when Mariana is having a drink with Fred, she notices pages of writing on Fred’s coffee table. She asks what it's about, and he says it's about his mother who left him. He tells Mariana she died, however, the most recent chapter from the killer's perspective, leads us to believe that he killed his mother for attempting to abandon him.

At this point, it feels as if we’ve reached the big twist. We realise it is not Fosca’s story we have been given insight into, but Fred’s. However, it still leaves us wondering why he would be killing members of the Maidens. We also know that the killer has been leaving ‘calling cards’, Greek mythology postcards with sinister passages from Greek tragedies, and pine cones.

Tarquin and Lucretia

Mariana finds The Collected Works of Euripides in Fosca’s rooms with the exact same passages underlined, as well as a pinecone that Fosca explains reminds him of home. So this makes us wonder why Fred would want to frame Fosca, as well as why he would want to kill the Maidens. This was what was going through my mind, but I should point out that Mariana still thinks it's Fosca at this point, and never suspects Fred, even though something else comes up that points the finger at him.

As we near the end of the story, both Mariana and her niece Zoe have received one of these postcards, indicating that they are the next to die. Mariana tells Zoe that they have to leave and go back to London, to which Zoe refuses and says they can still prove that Fosca is the killer. She reveals that she may know where the murder weapon is, and when Mariana presses her as to how she knows that, Zoe confesses that she had undergone an ‘initiation’ into the Maidens. During this initiation, she was drugged and Fosca held a knife (the murder weapon) to her neck. Zoe manages to convince Mariana not to leave yet, and to go with her to find the knife.

Mariana reluctantly agrees. While Mariana waits in Zoe’s room, she finds a couple of pages of what looks like a diary, hidden in one of her soft toys. The pages are the last chapter from the killer's perspective and reveal that he did in fact kill his mother and that he is in love with Zoe. It also says,

“I had a premonition - from the very second I saw you, I knew…”

which is almost the exact words that Fred says to Mariana when he confesses his love for her. He also says continuously throughout the book that he’s psychic and has premonitions.

I know this is getting a bit confusing. My thought process at this point was that Fred had been killing the Maidens and framing Fosca for Zoe, who hated them all. I also thought that maybe Zoe had turned down his advances and that is why he tried to start something with Mariana, who was a connection to her and the closest relative she had.

Boy was I wrong.

So, they get to the place where the murder weapon is, and Mariana confronts Zoe about the pages she found, still thinking that it was written by Fosca. Zoe starts to act rather strange and unlike herself, and seems confused when Mariana says that Fosca doesn’t love her and that he is dangerous. Zoe then starts to be malicious, almost taunting Mariana with the mystery of who really wrote the letter. I’m sitting there thinking here we go, this is it, she’s going to say Fred… and she tells her it was Sebastian.

Sebastian. Sebastian. SEBASTIAN. Are you kidding me? Her late husband who has been dead for a year, and only exists in the book as a memory. HIM? I speed-read the rest of it because I did not understand how it made sense, or believe that that is what we were leading up to.

So, this is what happened. Zoe and Sebastian had been having an affair since Zoe was a child. Mariana and Sebastian got together in university, so when he was introduced to Zoe she was genuinely a child. During her confession, she tells Mariana that he slept with her when she was 15 and they had been having a love affair up until his death. He and Zoe had a plan to kill Mariana for the inheritance she got from her father (who Sebastian killed because he found out about him and Zoe), and Zoe was now carrying out that plan because she blamed Mariana for Sebastian’s death.

My head hurts just wrapping my mind around this plot twist.

So… Zoe then explains that she killed the Maidens and framed Fosca. As a distraction. A red herring. She said she was following Sebastian's plan… to honour him. She then tries to kill Mariana who is semi-rescued by Fred. In truth, Fred got in the way and Zoe stabbed him, giving Mariana a moment to get a big ole rock and smack her over the head with it.

I’m sorry, but does that not sound like the end to a completely different story? The book is called The Maidens, and the whole point of the book is nothing to do with the Maidens! I can’t be the only person that is frustrated by that. Also, the whole twist with Fosca was just that he was sleeping with all the Maidens, which was not a twist, I guessed that from the moment he was introduced.

Seriously though… it felt like such a cop-out. It felt like Michaelides was trying so hard to make a huge and shocking twist that he just ended up butchering it completely. There was no lead-up to that reveal. He introduced all those characters, all those suspects, all those references to Greek tragedy, all those hints of suspicion… FOR NOTHING. I haven’t read his first novel yet but I’m assuming it maybe had this big twist at the end that people loved, and so it put a lot of pressure on him to do the same for this book. So he gets points for trying to outdo himself. He also wrote this book during lockdown, so props for that.

The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides' debut novel

I’ll end with a positive point. I noticed that he references the character from his first book, Alicia Berenson, and Mariana converses with Theo Faber who is the main character from the same book. Also at the end of The Maidens, Mariana is at the Grove, where Zoe ends up in psychiatric care as Theo’s patient, and the book reads

“Theo opened his office door. And through the open doorway, Mariana glimpsed a beautiful, red-haired woman sitting, waiting, staring through the barred window, at the grey sky outside. The woman turned and looked warily at Theo as he entered the room and shut the door behind him.”

I gathered from this that it's possibly a connection to his next book, in which the red-haired woman will be a main character. I like how even though his two books are not in any way the same story, he has set them in the same universe and subtly linked them together, and might be possibly doing the same with his next book.

I feel much better now that I have got that all off my chest. I would love to hear if anyone else feels the same because I can’t be the only one. Apologies if you loved the book, but, as with all reviews, it is just a matter of opinion and taste!

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About the Creator

G. A. Mckay

I am a Scottish writer based in Glasgow. I like to write articles about film, television and literature, also book reviews, and short stories.

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