No witnesses, no clues and no body. It's a quirky, nerve-wracking and incredibly well constructed novel.
Josy, the twelve-year-old daughter of renowned psychiatrist Victor Larenz, disappears from the examining doctor's office under unclear circumstances while her father waits for her in the waiting room. Both the doctor and the nurse agree that she never went in. Since then, no one knows where the girl is or what happened to her.
Four years later, the tormented father retreats to an isolated weekend house on Parkum Island. There, he is approached by a mysterious young woman who introduces herself as a writer and complains that she is plagued by delusions. She keeps seeing a little girl who has disappeared without a trace, just like the psychiatrist's daughter. Jane Doe invokes the recommendation of Victor's colleague and asks him to treat her. Initially hesitant because he has left his medical practice under the impact of a traumatic event, Victor eventually begins therapy, which turns into an increasingly dramatic interrogation...
Through the chaotic accounts of the schizophrenic, Fitzek manages to blur the boundaries between fantasy and reality, and after a while the listener is no longer able to determine what really happened and what is just a sick fabrication of Anna Spiegel. A suspenseful psycho-thriller with many of the stylistic devices of horror, it was the debut of the year. Therapy has an ingenious and in its own way unique idea. It's a quirky, nerve-wracking and incredibly well constructed novel. The reader has no idea of the denouement.
