Helen Fields turns up the tension in this grisly, twisty thriller

Book review

The Institution by Helen Fields keeps you guessing

Anne Marie Scanlon

March 12 2023 02:30 AM

The Institution is a remote hospital for the criminally insane (the easiest way to reach it is by helicopter). The Heaven ward is where the worst inmates are held – violent, prolific serial killers.

Criminal profiler Connie has gone undercover on the ward to find out who killed heavily pregnant nurse Tara and removed her baby. “It was called foetal abduction, and it was the worst crime imaginable as far as Connie was concerned. No small claim given how high her professional experiences had set the bar.”

Connie needs to find the vulnerable baby quickly, knowing her removal from the ward must have been done by a staff member. She knows the killer will quickly guess why she is there.

Dr Ong, who is in charge of the ward, is a do-gooder who imagines he can cure his patients – or clients as he instructs everyone to call them. Both the medical and auxiliary staff think he is as deranged as his charges.

His deputy Dr Roth is a sadistic, angry woman. Then there are the “clients”, five violent men, any one of whom could have murdered Tara.

As a teenager Connie spent time in a psychiatric institution herself. By necessity all staff live within the walls of the Institution and Connie begins to struggle in the closed claustrophobic world. Then there’s a storm and all the power goes down, which means the locks on the doors open.

I struggled a bit with the first chapter as I found Connie speaking to Tara’s corpse toe-curling, but I’m so glad I carried on.

Fields has delivered both a thriller and whodunit where the tension never lets up. Connie doesn’t know who to trust and nor will the reader as there are more twists and turns than in a bowl of spaghetti. A riveting read.

‘The Institution’ by Helen Fields, Avon, €14