EXCELLENT! EXTRAORDINARY!! EXCELSIOR!!!
If you love mysteries and haven’t read a good one in a while, get ready to devour Every Fifteen Minutes by Lisa Scottoline. In February 2014, I reviewed a book by Lisa entitled Accused, which was good but doesn’t hold a candle to Every Fifteen Minutes! I found myself wishing I had done better in the Evelyn Wood speeding reading course I took so I could get to the end of this book faster.
I have watched far too many episodes of mysteries on television like Dateline and 48 Hours. Usually, within the first few minutes I blurt out the person “who done it” and am right most of the time. I’m no sleuth; it’s just easy to draw a conclusion. My wife, Barb, who many times will watch with me, will yell, “Don’t tell me,” and yet, with her patience, she puts up with me episode after episode following the same script.
The first thing that drew me into the story is since Lisa is a local author, the action takes place in Delaware, Chester and Montgomery counties and includes streets, towns, stores and police stations that someone living in these areas would recognize.
I should warn you that while I was flipping pages on the 432 page novel, I stopped every few chapters to report to Barb how good the book is. She heard so much that she started lapping me on chapters on her Kindle while reading a summary of the chapters. She advised me she didn’t think she would read the book because of a divorce of two of the main characters. Although it is troubling that divorce takes place, Lisa, who I believe has been divorced twice in real life, may shed some good light on the subject by explaining how horrible a divorce is to go through with ever increasing hostilities between spouses and the terrible impact on the kids of the marriage.
The main character, Dr. Eric Parrish, is a psychiatrist, the highly respected Chief of a psychiatric unit in a hospital, who also has a practice at his home. Eric’s world starts to fall apart when his attractive wife, an attorney, presents him with divorce papers, arranges to sell their house without his knowledge and tries to wrestle full custody of their seven year old daughter, Hannah, from him.
Within a short period of time, the powers to be of the hospital as well as many employees under Eric start to lose confidence in him because a sociopath is out to destroy him. Eric’s love and devotion for Hannah, Max (a 17 year old genius with many problems that Eric has only met with twice) and his various other patients leads the principled doctor to jail as he addresses charges of sexual harassment, violence against an inmate, murder and interference with local police, the FBI and homeland security as he risks his life to save Max, who is holding five kids hostage in the King of Prussia Mall with a bomb and a gun.
Considering all that Eric must go through and the fact that in medical school he developed an anxiety disorder, the book showed that doctors are humans too with the same sort of problems we all have (in this case, much more serious). As a matter of fact, it had me wondering how many psychiatrists have their own psychiatrists. I then found out that Eric indeed had a mentor psychiatrist to talk with. Through his calm demeanor, ability to talk with people and reasoning abilities, Eric faces all of his challenges head on with amazing results. So much for the lightweight shows Dateline and 48 Hours. This thriller had me ready to convict half a dozen people who were innocent.
There is levity in the book, also, as Eric is represented by attorney Paul Fortunato, brother of Laurie, who attended medical school with him. Paul is an overconfident loud-mouth who dresses to the nines, is always setting the stage for the defense of his client and can rub the opposition crazy. However, I think if I were in some kind of legal trouble I would want Paul to represent me, obnoxious or not!
The title Every Fifteen Minutes is explained in two separate ways in the book. If you wonder what they are, please read this novel. I promise, you will not be disappointed. The cover of the book indicates Lisa Scottoline is a New York Times Bestselling Author. This book, in my eyes, only enhances her standing!
As I regretfully completed the last page of the book, all I could think about Lisa Scottoline’s writing is it must share a bit of DNA with Alfred Hitchcock’s writing.
As the articulate Yogi Berra always said: “It ain’t over till it’s over.”
Jeff Hall, of Honey Brook, contributes columns to Berks-Mont Newspapers. Questions/comments may be directed to jeffreyhall77@comcast.net.
