I have not yet read Tom Rob Smith's Child 44, but I have heard really good things. So I wasn't surprised that I really liked his more personal novel The Farm. Based on some real experiences that Smith experienced, The Farm is the story of a young man in London suddenly dealing with the fact that his mother appears to be psychotic. Out of the blue, the protagonist gets a call from his father, from the farm where they retired, saying that his mother is on her way to London and is unstable. She checked herself out of the psychiatric ward and has been on the run ever since.
The son is stunned. Nothing like this has ever happened in his family. He grew up happy and loved, and he had no idea what could have turned his mother into the woman speaking of conspiracies and crimes and dangerous neighbors. As he chases down leads, trying to unravel what happened to his family, he realizes how much he doesn't know about his mother, his parents' relationship, and his family as a whole.
His search takes him from confusion and isolation to understanding and connection. But it's the journey that sucked me in. I'm a psych girl, a sucker for a story of how we live and love and learn. And this was written for me. It's a beautifully written psychological narrative of a family in crisis, and I highly recommend it. It's not like his other novels (which are in my TBR, I promise). But still, a lovely story of family and redemption.