The art therapy technique of drawing a house, tree, and person is used by therapists to assess personality traits and disorders. When new psychiatric hospital employee Allison McGovern shows her personal sketch to fellow worker and mental health nurse Lars, his odd reaction worries her. She’s drawn her own happy family—son Angelo, a handsome, if moody, 15-year-old, and loving spouse, Marco. What does he see that she doesn’t?
Allison feels underqualified for the position at prestigious Howell Hall, but is determined to do her best. She desperately needs this job, thanks to the poor financial decisions of her husband, who has managed to bankrupt their two once-successful businesses.
Her official duties at the private hospital appear straightforward. She is expected to tailor individual health and social needs programs for the patients, who range from the psychotic to the anorexic.
She begins with Sylvie, a catatonic patient who has been confined for 15 years. When Sylvie starts to respond to Ali’s treatments, her physician, Dr. Ferris, curiously doesn’t seem to care. Things get stranger when sharp-eyed Lars confides to Ali that he believes one of the young residents, Julia, is faking her mental illness. Why would she lie in order to stay? The discovery of a body, buried on the nearby grounds of abandoned Dundrennan Abbey, serves to deepen the plot. Is something sinister happening under the deceptively smooth surface of the expensive clinic? Those questions are at the heart of the mystery in House. Tree. Person.
This is a complex story whose characters have layer upon layer of hidden motives, which award-winning writer Catriona McPherson deftly peels away. I found the smoky darkness of this slow-paced but relentless Scottish mystery very appealing.