A sinister psychiatrist who tells his patients the exact dates of their deaths - and always seems to get it right; a little boy with a unique gift that makes his older brother increasingly jealous; and a detective already battling his own demons, tormented after being told the date of his own death.
With such dark and compelling elements, this book grabbed my attention from the very first paragraph. At first I was a bit confused by the different timelines concerning the detective’s past and present cases, but it became clearer as I kept reading and began to see the bigger picture of the puzzle.
I was particularly immersed in the chapters featuring the letters a man wrote to his brother, recounting several events in their lives since childhood. As we read these chapters, the tension and darkness steadily build, and we try to make sense of how they connect to the cases in the present timeline.
I can’t say I was surprised by any jaw-dropping twists, but I was nevertheless impressed by this very gripping dark thriller, which raises a chilling premise: what if people knew the date of their death in advance?

A dark, high-concept psychological thriller that hooks you with its chilling premise.... a psychiatrist who can predict death. Fast-paced and unsettling, it blends crime investigation with a creeping sense of inevitability, as DI Silas Hart races against a fate that may already be decided. Twisty, tense, and slightly eerie, it’s one of those reads that plays with your head long after you’ve put it down.

Totally immersive reading. When, on the occasion of his 57th birthday, two men in entirely different circumstances apparently commit suicide - one right in front of him - it surely signalled that something is afoot. Both have suffered from mental issues and both have been treated by the same psychiatrist and so begins a long and frightening investigation into the effects that therapy combined with drugs can have when administered by a madman. Gripping reading.

A tense and compelling read that becomes increasingly uncertain once the true relationship between the two boys - and later as adults - is understood. Strong characters with a loving family at the centre help to counter the darkness.

I really enjoyed this one I liked the 3 different time lines I found the characters interesting and well written. Such a roll coaster ride that I didn’t want to get off the twists were soooo good

A good story with lots of twists and thrills. A real page turner of a read. My thanks to netgalley and the publisher's for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

His Final Patient is a dark psychological thriller built around a wonderfully unnerving premise : what if a psychiatrist could accurately predict the date of your death? DI Silas Hart witnesses a man kill himself after calmly announcing it is his "death day" .the victim had been treated by the same psychiatrist linked to earlier suspicious deaths. Soon Hart himself becomes a target and the story turns into both a murder investigation and a race against psychological manipulation .I feel I have met Silas before ,I really enjoyed the book with its impossible twists and turns and the ending has a very surprising twist .Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC .

Can someone see into the future and predict a ‘death day’? This is the question facing DI Hart who is told that he will die on a specific date. Are the Garstan brothers gifted, or are they charlatans. This is a clever and well written psychological thriller with a twist. The relationship between Hart and his subordinate Strover is well portrayed as is his family dynamic. This is the first book I have read by this author and I will check out his other works.

What a crazy world wind of a ride!!
This had so many twists going on I couldn't kept them straight don't want to say too much
I definitely would not want to know the date I would die.
Great concept of a book.

Thanks to the author the publisher and Netgalley for a early release of this book.

Another really good read from J S Monroe, whose previous books I have also very much enjoyed. Well drawn characters and locations – and excellent research too on precognition and thanatophobia. I was drawn in very quickly to the story about a psychiatrist who says he can predict precisely when someone is going to die – and we meet the detective who sees it happen. He is then drawn in with a forecast date of his own death, leading to believable personal issues, disruption to family, and his own issues. The story races along, unfolding as it goes, right up to the last page. I wasn’t keen on the flashbacks, but some might be; for me, they added little and temporarily broke the “hold” the story had on me. Some excellent side-issues with a very real basis in fact and a good police investigation team. I will certainly keep Mr Monroe on my reading list and look forward to his next novel.
Thanks to Head of Zeus / Bloomsbury and NetGalley for the early review opportunity – the views expressed herein are solely my own.

This was my first novel by J.S. Monroe, and it certainly won’t be my last.

His Final Patient is a cleverly constructed thriller, packed with great twists and believable characters. I was especially drawn to the way the story unfolds across multiple timelines—present day, three years earlier, and a mysterious parallel narrative—which kept me interested and keen to find out more.

The pacing felt just right, gradually revealing key details while still leaving plenty to question, and I found myself second-guessing everything right up to the end. A thoroughly engaging and well-executed read.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

we are back with the very capable DI Hart and team and i couldn't be more pleased to see him. what he sees though is kind of awful.because someone shoots themselves right in front of him. but they do so because they believe it is their death day. they have been told and predicted the exact date of their death. and this is becoming self fulfilling prophecy. like the worst kind of reverse placebo effect!
this doesn't just feel all wrong because of these events but also how it reminds him of another case that has stuck with him from years ago. when that left the victims in the same way with the same calling card. the Hourglass. its now up to him to figure this out before the timer is tipped and the sands run out for someone else.
their is a link. and that comes in the form of a psychiatrist who appears to be the one telling his patients these dates they will die on?
oooooo chills yet? yeh, me too!
this hit all the right notes on my favourite kind of thriller. the psychological injected ones. i could feel the unease all the way through. it never let up and builds in places that had me genuinely gripping the book harder.
when DI Hart then gets his own ticking time bomb of a prediction it becomes so much more. hes not only trying to save more lives of the public. but what if he is needing to save his own now too. you can feel like there is a tick tick ticking away. this is a genius way of wrapping the tension up even more.
this book had the ability to keep me guessing but also giving me enough to be excitedly figuring some bits out myself too. the pieces as they fit together make you just need to know more. i couldn't get my head around someone treating poorly people and then doing this to his victims. but there is so much more to it than that and the reveals are so clever along the way.
another brilliant read from Monroe one which really plays into our vulnerabilities and vulnerable people. that makes the feeling of it even more chilling and even more of a page turner to see how it will all play out,

A fast paced read, perfect for when you are in need of a book that will keep you hooked from start to finish.

This thriller was so clever written. A unhinged story, which gave me a very unsettling feeling throughout the book. You think what the...
The story goes back and forth in the past and present. Also a story that is building to something. Slowly the story comes togheter and it all clicks. The end is not what you think. I loved it all the way and it was so engaging.
A very good solid, fast-paced mystery!

His Final Patient is a dark, clever and deeply unsettling psychological thriller that kept me questioning everything from beginning to end.

The central idea is chilling. A psychiatrist claims he can predict the exact date of a person’s death, and his patients believe him because the predictions appear to come true.

When DI Silas Hart witnesses a man take his own life after calmly announcing that it is his death day, the case immediately connects with two earlier deaths that have haunted him for years. Each victim is linked by an hourglass and by the same psychiatrist.

Then Hart is given a death date of his own.

From that moment, the story becomes much more than a police investigation. Hart is trying to uncover the truth while also dealing with the psychological impact of being told exactly when he will die. Even if he does not believe the prediction, it begins to affect his thinking, his family and the decisions he makes.

For me, one of the strongest parts of the book was the use of two voices. The story moves between the present investigation and a second account told through letters and memories. At first, it is not clear how the different strands connect or even who is truly speaking.

That uncertainty works extremely well. The more you read, the more you question the identities of the people involved and whether the version of events you are being given can be trusted.

There is a slightly dark and unnerving atmosphere throughout. The idea of someone using fear, therapy and suggestion against vulnerable people is disturbing because it feels just believable enough. The book plays with the question of whether fate can be predicted or whether the belief in a prediction can make it come true.

The relationships between the characters also add depth, particularly the bond between the two brothers and the pressure the case places on Hart and his family. These more human elements prevent the story from becoming simply a clever idea or a collection of twists.

As the timelines come together, the truth becomes increasingly complicated. I enjoyed trying to work out who was manipulating whom and how the past connected to the deaths in the present.

The final revelations are clever and satisfying, and the ending made me reconsider much of what I had read before.

This is a gripping, original and thought provoking thriller. It is dark without becoming excessive, unsettling without relying on shock alone, and it kept me completely engaged.

I would definitely recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

The storyline that everyone dreads. The prediction of their death date and meeting the person that seems to predict it accurately. Gripping thriller that takes the reader on a rollercoaster of confusion and fear. I’ll never look at an hourglass the same way again. Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy..

This was my first book by J.S. Monroe, and it definitely won't be my last. The premise was intriguing a psychiatrist who predicts his patients' death dates, with those predictions seemingly always coming true.

From the start, I really enjoyed the partnership between DI Silas Hart and Strover. They work brilliantly as a team, balancing each other out and making their interactions one of the highlights of the book.

I did manage to figure out the main twist by about the last third of the book, but that didn't take away from my enjoyment. There were still plenty of surprises along the way, and the ending genuinely caught me off guard.

Overall i really enjoyed this, and I'll definitely be picking up more of his books. 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 stars.

I found the premise really interesting - a psychiatrist who believes he can predict when people will die, and has been doing so with chilling accuracy, trusted completely by his patients as his predictions keep coming true. I really liked the main detective, DI Silas Hart, and his partner, DS Strover - well-developed characters, and I really enjoyed the journey with them. I'd love to see more of them in future books. The story is dark and unsettling, with a psychiatrist giving his patients a specific death day, Silas's own pre-existing anxiety about death takes a huge upward turn once the psychiatrist turns his sights on him and gives him his own. There wasn't really very much about the patients themselves and why they'd become so dependent on the psychiatrist, which would have been interesting to explore further. The book starts straight into the action, which I love, with a young man walking up to Hart and telling him that today is his death day before shooting himself in front of him. An hourglass found on the body catapults Hart back to two suspicious deaths that have haunted him for years, and the story is told across three timelines - some of the time jumps were quite disorientating and a little confusing at points. I really liked the Wiltshire setting, and the descriptions were brilliant. The plot is clever and gripping, and although I didn't predict the twist myself, it did seem obvious once it was revealed. It's a fast read and a real page-turner.

4 ⭐️ Thanks to Netgalley, J.S. Monroe and Aria & Aries for an ARC of this book.

4.25/5 stars

Another great psychological thriller by JS Monroe, His final patient is based on a very unique and unsettling premise: what happens if your psychiatrist claims to be able to know your death day, down to the exact minute? I devoured this book in a few sittings, and as things kept getting darker and the twists started piling up I found myself thinking about it even when I wasn't reading. I had a few theories but nothing came close to what was actually going on. The only down side for me was that with the last revelations I started getting confused and I'm not sure I really got who was who at the end. But the ride was thoroughly enjoyable. This is a book I recommend!

Wow, a very different thriller, and I really liked it! It was refreshing to read a good twist on the tried and tested murder mystery trope.