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Therapy [Hardcover]

Sebastian Fitzek (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)


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Book Description

March 17, 2009

No witnesses, no evidence, no body: Star psychologist Viktor Larenz’s twelve-year-old daughter, Josy, who had suffered from an inexplicable illness, has vanished under mysterious circumstances during a visit to her doctor, and the investigation into her disappearance has brought no results. Four years later, Viktor remains a man shattered by this tragedy. He has retreated to a remote vacation cottage on a North Sea island, where a beautiful stranger named Anna Glass pays him a visit. She claims to be a novelist who suffers from an unusual form of schizophrenia: all the characters she creates for her books become real. While writing her most recent novel, Anna has been tortured by visions of a little girl with an unknown illness who has vanished without a trace, and she asks Dr. Larenz to treat her. Viktor reluctantly begins therapy sessions with the stranger, but very soon these sessions take a dramatic turn as the past is dragged back into the light. What really happened to Josy? Do Anna’s delusions describe Josy’s last days? And is Larenz a danger to himself and others?

Therapy is an absolutely gripping psychological thriller, an intelligent, fast and furious read that will stay with you for a long time after you have followed Viktor into the depths of his own psyche, and have figured out who Anna Glass really is.


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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Extreme grief permeates Fitzek's brilliant psychological thriller, a bestseller in his native Germany. When TV psychiatrist Viktor Larenz's 12-year-old daughter, Josy, who suffers from a number of unexplainable illnesses, vanishes without a trace from her doctor's office, Larenz's subsequent search for even the smallest clue to the girl's disappearance costs him his career and marriage. Four years later, Larenz has retreated to an isolated, storm-prone island, where he's visited by children's novelist Anna Glass, a schizophrenic who believes the characters she creates become real. One of those characters bears a striking resemblance to Josy and may have the answer to what happened to her. Unbalanced by his mourning, Larenz emerges as an unreliable but sympathetic character. Is he really losing his mind or is he being gaslighted? Undertones of gothic suspense imbue an unpredictable plot that will remind many of Shutter Island and A Beautiful Mind. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Dr. Larzek, a highly respected German psychiatrist, is devastated by first his daughter’s mysterious illness and then her disappearance. Falling into the bottle and away from his wife, he hires a private investigator to continue the search. Later, unable to work, Larzek retreats to the remote North Sea island of Parkum, where he encounters Anna Glass, a young woman who demands that Larzek treat her severe schizophrenia. We learn much of the story through flashbacks, as the doctor is now a patient in a high-security mental hospital, speaking with his psychiatrist, relating the events that led to his collapse. With an attention-grabbing opener, short chapters with headers that count down the days, and an overwhelming sense of doom looming over every page, Therapy is a one-sitting page-turner that never disappoints. When the full story is eventually revealed, it is both shocking and confusing: Who is real, and who is telling the truth? Suggest this gripping thriller to fans of Tana French, Inger Frimansson, Karin Alvtegen, and, especially, to anyone who knows Petra Hammesfahr’s The Sinner (2008), another fast-paced German crime novel rich with psychological suspense. --Jessica Moyer

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (March 17, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0312382006
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312382001
  • Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,414,449 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars deep psychological thriller, March 20, 2009
This review is from: Therapy (Hardcover)
Suffering from several unexplained illnesses, twelve year old Josy Larenz vanishes while visiting her twenty-second medical expert Dr. Grohlke. No one saw her disappear and no evidence as to what happened surfaces. As the case turns cold, Josy's father psychologist Viktor Larenz searches the most minute clue that could lead him to the whereabouts of his daughter as he remains hopeful, but would even settle on the closure of her corpse. His obsession destroys his marriage to Isabel whom he admires for her inner fortitude that he now knows he lacks and costs him his TV show. For all his efforts, he fails to find one iota of a trace of Josy.

Four years later, Viktor intellectually knows he remains in the denial stage of grief, but cannot move on as psychologically he is still devastated. He has fled society choosing to live as a hermit on an isolated North Sea island. Anna Glass arrives to talk to him. She claims to be a writer of nonfiction whose characters come alive; though no longer practicing psychology, Viktor believes the beautiful stranger suffers from schizophrenia. However he becomes intrigued when Anna discusses her characterization of a preadolescent girl suffering from an unidentified illness before vanishing. She knows she needs help and Viktor grudgingly agrees to provide therapy even as he wonders who Anna Glass truly is and is she the first clue to finding Josy.

This is a deep psychological thriller as the two prime characters are emotionally unbalanced and the third key player is the missing girl. Readers will sympathize with Viktor and empathize with his ex wife though she has limited appearances. Anna is an enigma as the audience wonders whether she is a crazy person, a con artist, or a killer. Fans will be hooked by the translation of Sebastian Fitzek's powerful character driven tale with a fabulous climax.

Harriet Klausner
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars "His behavior doesn't follow the usual rules.", March 29, 2009
This review is from: Therapy (Hardcover)
In Sebastian Fitzek's "Therapy," forty-seven year old Dr. Viktor Larenz is "an eminent psychiatrist with a successful clinic in central Berlin" who "is the author of numerous books and was once a regular guest on radio and TV." He has a wife, Isabell, and an eleven-year old daughter, Josy, whom he adores. Sadly, Larenz experiences a mental breakdown and is admitted to a facility for treatment. What precipitated his emotional collapse? It seems that his little girl had been ill for almost a year, with symptoms that her doctors could not trace to any obvious cause. Josy starts out with vomiting and diarrhea and later suffers from seizures, infections, and nosebleeds. Then, something even more dreadful occurs. Josy vanishes, and her father is beside himself with grief.

"Therapy" veers from the present to the past and then back to the present, as Larenz's therapist, Dr. Roth, attempts to unlock the secrets of his patient's disordered psyche. Viktor recounts his stay in his family's island cottage four years after his child's disappearance. One day, an intruder enters his house. She is a mysterious woman named Anna Glass, who may have important information about Josy's fate. Although he no longer practices medicine, Larenz agrees to treat Anna, hoping that they can bring one another the closure that they desperately seek.

Sally-Ann Spencer skillfully translates this tale of obsession and self-delusion from the original German. Fitzek plays with us, allowing us glimpses of the truth and then throwing us off the scent. The canny reader will probably guess what is going on long before the book's denouement, but there are some surprising developments that few will foresee. Larenz is a tragic yet sympathetic hero. We identify with his pain and torment, even as we dread finding out the reason for his bizarre behavior. When Viktor decides to face reality, he suspects that doing so will cost him the little sanity that he still possesses. "Therapy" is a bit too gimmicky to work as a literary thriller, but it is a mesmerizing and fast-paced novel that effectively explores the most twisted recesses of the human mind.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars What is true . . . What's a delusion . . ., October 10, 2009
This review is from: Therapy (Hardcover)
An eminent psychologist suffers a breakdown after the disappearance of his 12-year-old daughter goes missing during an doctor's appointment he had taken her to in an effort to find out what was causing the mysterious illness she'd been suffering from for about a year.

I have mixed feelings about this book -- on one hand it definitely kept me turning the pages but on the other hand I spent the whole book trying to figure out what was really happening--what was true and what was a delusion (which was great)--but at the end, everything is explained by these psychologists and really there was no way the reader could have figured most of that stuff out from the story. I felt a little cheated. Also -- don't know if it's because of the translation but in places the writing seemed really amateurish . . .
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
As the thirtieth minute ticked by, he knew he would never see his daughter again. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Anna Glass, Professor Malzius, Viktor Larenz, North Sea, Martin Roth, Professor van Druisen, Berlin-Wedding Psychosomatic Clinic, New York, Kai Strathmann, Michael Burg
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Front Cover | First Pages | Surprise Me!
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