In a world gone mad, who can you trust?
Fresh from a high-profile case in the Paris fashion world, elite forensic psychologist and criminal profiler Dr Alexander Gregory receives a call from the New York State Homicide Squad. The wife of a notorious criminal has been admitted to a private psychiatric hospital and can no longer testify in his upcoming trial.
Without her, their case will collapse but, amidst reports that the staff are as unpredictable as their patients, who can the police trust?
In desperation, they turn to an outsider and now Gregory must find the courage to step inside the fortified walls of Buchanan Hospital to uncover the truth. The question is, will he ever be the same again?
Murder and mystery are peppered with dark humour in this fast-paced thriller set amidst the spectacular Catskill Forest.
My favourite part of the week is starting a fresh audiobook, since Covid I’ve become a more developed reader and will happily binge upon an audiobook ESPECIALLY when Richard Armitage is narrating it. Bedlam is the third
instalment of the Dr Gregory series and this time our protagonist has gone
undercover into Buchanan Hospital, where he is thrust into a setting where
danger surely lurks. I think this must be my favourite book so far. “Why?” I
hear you ask, well, a big aspect of it is because Alexander begins to share his
vulnerable side a little bit more with us.
As Alexander enters a world of madness, he begins to examine his own mind and the life that has brought him here. In the first two books of the series, we are kept at arm’s length only being allowed
fragments that Dr Gregory wills to share but in Bedlam it is as though he has
no choice but to unveil the pain that he’s suffered and while he enters the
hospital with a different identity, his true self-understanding begins to leak
through.
Along with Gregory’s self-discovery, he must also keep his wits about him as there is a need for protection for one of the patients who have very tight ties with the criminal world and mafia family type activity. With hope of a mob boss’ wife staying safe to bring her husband to justice, Gregory must put his own personal issues aside and find out if the wife is in he safest place possible.
LJ Ross has constructed a novel that entwines an adrenaline pumping undercover case with a psychological insight into PTSD and cognitive
awareness. I enjoyed how she used the setting to draw out elements of our
protagonists that develops him further into a three-dimensional character while
also having us sitting on the edge of our seats with the undercurrent of the
case at hand. I felt as though I was being drawn into the setting of a contemporary The One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with less Nurse Ratchet but an insight to madness sprinkled with dark humour at parts. Louise’s excellently crafted novel is brought to life further by the voice of Richard Armitage who has a great set of vocals, ones that change and give each individual you’ll find between these pages an independent voice and he is the perfect voice for Dr Alexander Gregory, it makes me wish that I’d experienced the first two books in
this series via audiobook format.
I highly recommend diving into this series, in whatever format you choose to, but if you think the audiobook will last you a whole week of school runs… 2.5 days of school runs AND listening while cooking! You can check it out here!
The Reading Closet 