Obsessed
-
- $12.99
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
G. H. Ephron's gripping crime novels deal with fascinating psychological symptoms at work in the minds of murderers and their targets. In Obsessed, forensic neuropsychologist and expert defense witness Peter Zak is trying to help a coworker, Dr. Emily Ryan, who is being tormented by a stalker. She doesn't have any idea who it could be, and his acts have been escalating, to the point where he's breaking into her car and leaving sick messages.
Peter is increasingly worried about where the violence will end. And there is no lack of suspects, as the naive Emily seems to attract admirers blindly; from her colleagues at the Neuropsychiatric Unit where she is studying the brain and its disorders to the other doctors at the Pearce Psychiatric Institute, even Peter notices himself responding to her blond good looks and puppy dog eyes. Or, as suggested by Peter's friend P.I. Annie Squires, is Emily more aware of her appeal than she lets on?
When one of the potential suspects turns up dead, what started as a nuisance is suddenly much more complicated, and dangerous. Once again, G. H. Ephron delivers a complex, absorbing case that turns upon Peter's expert knowledge of human nature.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Due to the initially slow plot and a surfeit of medical detail not for the squeamish, Ephron's fourth mystery featuring Boston-area forensic psychologist Dr. Peter Zak satisfies less than its immediate predecessor, Delusion (2003). Zak investigates the stalking of a flirtatious physician, Emily Ryan, who works in the laboratory where doctors James Shands and Estelle Pullaski are hoping to find a breakthrough to treat Lewy body dementia, the brutal cousin of Alzheimer's disease. When Zak's girlfriend's uncle becomes a lab patient and almost dies of a bacterial infection, Zak suspects Shands and Pullaski are harvesting brains to use in their experiments. With the death of one of the lab staff, found crushed under an MRI machine, Zak is confronted with outright murder. The plot, once it builds up steam, becomes one of the author's most slick, but at the expense of character development. Still, the writing is as sharp as ever, with fewer clich s and fresher similes and metaphors than have appeared in past novels in what remains a series to watch. FYI: G. H. Ephron is the pseudonym of the writing team Hallie Ephron and Dr. Don Davidoff.
