Alex Michaelides (born 1977) is an author and screenwriter. His debut novel, The Silent Patient, was the #1 New York Times Bestseller of Hardcover Fiction in its first week and was the #2 most sold for 2019 on Amazon.com's list of Most Sold Books in fiction. The Silent Patient also won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Mystery & Thriller of 2019.Michaelides also wrote the films The Devil You Know, which starred Lena Olin, Rosamund Pike, and Jennifer Lawrence, and co-wrote The Con Is On, which starred Uma Thurman, Tim Roth, Parker Posey, and Sofia Vergara. He was born in Cyprus to a Greek father and English mother. He studied English literature at Cambridge University.