Thriller writer Michael Robotham already has a dozen publications under his belt. In GOOD GIRL, BAD GIRL, he launches a new series that promises both suspenseful narratives and astute psychological insights.

The first character we meet is a psychologist named Cyrus Haven, who has been called in on a consult by an old colleague. The subject in question is a young woman named Evie Cormac. No one knows her age, or even her real name. Evie had been the subject of some media notoriety when, as a young child, she was found hiding in a secret room, adjacent to an apartment where a man had been tortured and killed. At the time, Evie became known in the media as “Angel Face.” Now, however, she’s been confined to a secured facility for troubled youth following an aggravated assault charge.

"Although the murder case at the center of GOOD GIRL, BAD GIRL is solved in a thrilling and satisfying conclusion, Robotham certainly doesn’t tie up all the complicated and tangled threads of Cyrus and Evie’s psyches in this series opener."

After observing Evie in group therapy, Cyrus begins to suspect that she might be a so-called truth wizard, a phenomenon that was the subject of his thesis. Evie can be brash and abrasive, but she also has a seemingly uncanny ability to evaluate if the person with whom she is speaking is being honest.

Cyrus, who himself is a survivor of childhood trauma, finds himself drawn to Evie and wanting to give her a chance to prove herself. So he offers to foster her at his ramshackle manor house in Nottingham for a few months until she turns 18 (based on the arbitrary birthdate the court has set for her). But Cyrus may have bitten off more than he can chew when it comes to Evie, who, he soon discovers, is more deeply scarred than he had perceived at first.

Meanwhile, Cyrus, who often consults with the local police department, has become absorbed in another case involving a teenage girl. It soon seems as if everyone in Nottingham is a suspect in the murder of a promising young figure skater, and Cyrus begins to wonder if Evie’s truth-wizard skills might come in handy. That is, until Evie herself is drawn into the investigation, which brings up painful memories and impulses for her.

Although the murder case at the center of GOOD GIRL, BAD GIRL is solved in a thrilling and satisfying conclusion, Robotham certainly doesn’t tie up all the complicated and tangled threads of Cyrus and Evie’s psyches in this series opener. Readers will be eager to see where this intriguing pair will go next. Their dynamic is, to some extent, reminiscent of the relationship between Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series, with each potentially needing something from the other in order to fix their own broken places.