Something I wasn’t expecting the book to spend as much time on as it did was its depiction of grief. It’s easy to imagine the surroundings of the characters in almost every location and this helps in maintaining the atmosphere and tension. You can tell he’s spent a lengthy amount of time researching everything from the positioning of the river, to the various pubs and eateries people haunt, to the way the buildings are laid out. The majority of The Maidens is set on the grounds of Cambridge University in the UK and Michaelides does a great job of helping his reader to really visualise it. But how exactly to find the evidence to prove it?Īlright, let’s start with the good stuff first… A Portrait of Cambridge As Mariana looks closer at the crime and more bodies start to turn up, the more convinced she becomes that Fosca is the guilty party, alibis be damned. Of particular interest is Edward Fosca, the charismatic Greek tragedy professor and Tara’s potential lover, known for heading an exclusive, all female “study group” (aka secret society) known around campus as ‘The Maidens’. But when her niece Zoe calls from Cambridge after her friend, Tara, is found murdered, Mariana quickly finds herself caught up in the investigation.

Mariana Andros is a London-based group therapist still reeling from the tragic death of her husband a year prior. Still, I’d hoped it would be a fun mystery read with some secret society shenanigans, a dash of classic mythology and a decent twist at the end. I went into it knowing full well it wouldn’t be the next The Secret History.

I didn’t have crazy, unreachable expectations for this book.

The maidens by alex michaelides