The Clinic

A Novel

By: Cate Quinn

Narrated by: Kate Handford, Laurel Lefkow

From the critically acclaimed author of Black Widows comes a thriller set in a remote rehab clinic on the Pacific Northwest coast, in which the death of a woman inside prompts her sister to enter the clinic as a patient in order to find the truth. Perfect for fans of Stacy Willingham and Tarryn Fisher!

Meg works for a casino in LA, catching cheaters and popping a few too many pain pills to cope, following a far different path than her sister Haley, a famous actress. But suddenly reports surface of Haley dying at the remote rehab facility where she had been forced to go to get her addictions under control.

There are whispers of suicide, but Meg can't believe it. She decides that the best way to find out what happened to her sister is to check in herself—to investigate what really happened from the inside.

Battling her own addictions and figuring out the truth will be much more difficult than she imagined, far away from friends, family—and anyone who could help her.

©2024 Cate Quinn (P)2024 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Quinn does a terrific job creating quirky characters and keeping readers guessing."—Library Reads

Different accents made this confusing

I liked this book. It had a fun plot and many twists and turns. My one issue is that there were two narrators for the two different POVs and one narrator would use an English accent for a character and the other narrator wouldn't. It was very confusing.

The hype is real

I saw this book promoted a lot on various places I go for book recommendations (Audible, Pinterest, various YouTubers), this is my 1st time reading this author but I understand previous books are great too!
The Clinic is exceptional even for all the great twisty mysteries there are right now! Each twist has its own offshoot of other twists ect. The ending had like 5 mins worth of twists! I kept thinking it was over but then, mind blown again!
The narration is on point! Each character is distinct and when a book has this many to keep tract of that is important!
All around excellent listen I would recommend to anyone!

A bit predictable

It was entertaining but pretty transparent from early in the story. The mental health information was misleading and created plot holes.

Enjoyable Read

First from this author, but I plan to check out more. I enjoyed the writing style, the character depth, the issues explored in the story. Addiction and mental health do go hand in hand. and the portrayal of how the mind of an addict works is an accurate representation. The link between trauma, mental health, and Addiction is not discussed often enough, and the lack of resources for both mental health recovery and addiction recovery are sorely lacking. This story addresses some important topics. There are a few eye roll moments, but more redeeming qualities that make it worth the read. I will say, though, that this isn't the first time I've read 2 books back to back from different authors that had far too many similarities to seem coincidental. I'm not suggesting anything untoward, just maybe an unintentional influence or perhaps, just as with music, the industry steers the artist in a direction that they see as a successful formula. This book has so many similarities to Tarryn Fisher's latest, Good Half Gone, that it's hard to ignore. The sisters, suffering from abuse/neglect, one sister left behind trying to get her life in order after the departure of another, the setting of a remote mental health facility with dubious leadership, even the method that made the main twist possible was the same. though it was used for different characters. I'm not sure which story was influenced by the other but the similarities are just too much to ignore. I enjoyed this one more (which pains me to say because I'm such a huge Fisher fan).

Similarities aside, I definitely feel this was worth the read and will be looking for other books from this author.

Great Storyline and characters

It kept me guessing. I liked the character development and the story. I didn’t recognize a common formula. Seemed new to me.

Narrator not scary

The narrator just wasn't working with my brain. I wanted the voices to be more different and the the scary parts to have more quiet or crescendo narration

scattered

the overall plot was okay, but the story was scattered and disconnected. the characters seemed inconsistent and acted in ways out of line with their character. hard to follow

Long and lacking

The basic premise of this book sounds positive. There are a lot of subtle twists, but they take a long time to develop. The end wraps up the story well

Too long and kinda jumps the shark

Some of the writing was sophomoric. Like sisters frequently referring to each other as “sis.” Some focus was on certain characters that we were kept guessing about for no good reason, Those characters are just kind of dismissed at the end. And of course the resolution of the book is just so far afield from anything plausible that I felt mad I wasted so much time listening just for that to be where it went.

Forgettable and entertaining 2.5 stars

I was hoping for mystery, suspense, thrilling secrets, turns and twists. If we compare to a movie, something like Shutter Island but instead got an isolated episode of Criminal Minds you watch and it’s ok but you’ll soon forget.
There was so much opportunity to dig into psychological and Psychiatric themes accurately instead of making sh*t up as you go. Opportunity for some dark, intense and confusing moments but no. It was just very superficial, far fetched and not very credible. I don’t think I’ll read anything else from the author unless it’s free.