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Obsession

by Jonathan Kellerman

Reviewed by Coral


When one of Alex's former patients - Tanya Bigelow - reaches out to him after her mother's death, it is not the cry for help Alex thinks it is. Brought to him as a child because of her OCD tendencies, Tanya is now obsessed with what she believes is Patty's deathbed confession to murder.

Having heard of Alex's work with the LAPD, she begs him to have his detective friend look into her mother's past. Despite believing - along with everyone else in Patty's life - that Patty was too good a person to have killed someone, for the mental health of his patient, Alex gets Milo to dig around Patty's past.

But the more they dig, the more complex a web of intrigue they uncover. Is Patty really the angel everyone thinks she is? Or is there really a body hidden in her past?

This book started off pretty promising.  Rick Silverman - Milo's almost invisible lover - was more or less involved in the first part of the book. And, given that Patty was his primary RN and that he is the one who gave her Alex's name when she needed help for Tanya, it's a shame that he wasn't more involved. He just kind of disappeared at the mid way point. There were a couple of places - in the past, when one of the main players was brought to Cedars-Sinai's ER on a day Rick was off, and the ending bit with Milo - when he really should have been more present than he was. With all the times that Robin and Allison seemed to end up the damsel in distress, I would like a Rick-in-distress story line.

On the topic of Robin, I really could have done without the Robin and Alex back-together-and-so-much-in-love story line.

And did Petra really have to be in this book? Really can't stand her as a character.

I used to be really good at remembering details, but I can't remember if Alex has always had a sister and Petra has always had a bunch of brothers. I mean, I knew when Rick suddenly went from having a dentist sister to being an only child, but I can't remember if these siblings have always been around or if they are recent additions.

The plot gets rather ridiculous, much like most of the grand sweeping, everything every character does is part of a conspiracy plots that Kellerman does. Honestly, I would have preferred a much simpler plot. For a while, at the beginning, when I thought Rick was more involved in the story than he normally was, I thought that Patty's confession would turn out to be that she thought she was somehow responsible for putting Rick in harm's way, and that the death was something she was afraid would be happening soon. But I got a convoluted, everyone is connected to each other in a million ways, plot instead.

 

Grade: C