Obsessed
G.H. Ephron
St. Martin's, Dec 2003, $24.95, 320 pp.
ISBN 0312305311

Forensic psychologist Dr. Peter Zak is happy working at the prestigious Peace Psychiatric Institute and is looking forward to keeping his date with private investigator Annie Squires. When he walks to the parking lot he notices that Dr. Emily Ryan, who he is supervising, has a flat tire and somebody keyed her brand new Miata. When Emily spots the damage done to her car she is very upset because she thinks it is the work of her stalker.

Peter does his best to comfort Emily who leans on him a little too hard, which Annie points out to him. Both become suspicious of Emily when further incidents occur and there is no evidence that another person is doing it. Emily also works at the University Medical Imaging Lab where Annie and Peter discover the death to patient ratio is much higher than normal. Peter starts investigating the facility and almost ends up murdered for his efforts.

When Peter's prot g e is arrested for the murder of the person the police think was stalking her, he and Annie know that University Medical Imaging is involved. After looking at the UMI records, the reports show more deaths from patients who used a special MRI at the facility than those who did not. Annie and Peter go into sleuth mode to insure an innocent woman isn't framed for murder and the killers who snuffed out the lives of the elderly are brought to justice.

Two great lead characters and a strong secondary crew (medical, patient, and otherwise) inside a terse medical thriller will make readers obsess over the works of G.H. Ephron. OBSESSED is a fantastic medical thriller that will appeal to fans of Robin Cook.

Harriet Klausner