The Pain Nurse

January 19, 2009
The author of the David Mapstone series set in Phoenix (Cactus Heart
, etc.) puts an interesting twist on the detective solving a mystery while bed-ridden scenario in this tense, well-crafted whodunit. A brief glimpse of a horrific murder scene in Cincinnati Memorial Hospital is enough to tell Will Borders, an ex-homicide cop who's recovering from the removal of a spinal cord tumor, that the crime resembles those committed by the killer dubbed the Mount Adams Slasher. The man convicted of the slasher's crimes, however, was caught, tried and executed. Cheryl Beth Wilson, the pain nurse specialist who discovered the victim, Dr. Christine Lustig, becomes a suspect once the police learn she had an affair with Lustig's husband. Borders, one of Wilson's patients, isn't even ambulatory as the two start sharing information about the case. Talton's authentic depiction of hospital life lends heft, as do his searing descriptions of Borders's physical pain and mental anguish during recovery.

February 1, 2009
A nurse who understands pain, a cop who's got plenty of it and a cold case turned hot mesh smoothly in the latest from Talton (Cactus Heart, 2007, etc.).

Her friends know that, bright as she is, special nurse Cheryl Beth Wilson, an expert in pain medication, has a brain that can go woefully fuzzy. Take her senseless, joyless affair with Dr. Gary Nagle, the self-proclaimed golden boy of surgery at Cincinnati Memorial Hospital. For starters, it plunges Cheryl Beth into a rivalry with Christine Lustig, a powerhouse female doctor whose marriage to Nagle has ended but whose interest in him remains. Not only does Cheryl Beth have an enemy she doesn't need, she also has a motive for murder when Lustig is discovered hacked to death. Fortunately for Cheryl Beth, there's at least one cop who refuses to regard her as a person of interest—or rather whose interest in her is altogether different. Will Borders likes smart, funny, candid Cheryl Beth a lot. Even more to the point, he's convinced the Lustig homicide bears the MO of a certain born-again serial killer. Now that he's been sidelined by spinal surgery, however, Will's sleuthing is confined to what he can do from a wheelchair until Cheryl Beth becomes his sleuthing partner and perhaps something more.

Nicely done. Though she's a pain nurse, Cheryl Beth is a pleasure.

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Starred review from February 1, 2009
When Cheryl Beth Wilson, a pain nurse at Cincinnati Memorial Hospital, finds the body of a doctor murdered in a remote office, she becomes a suspect because she had an affair with the doctor's husband. Luckily, one of her patients is a former homicide detective who recognizes the crime scene as similar to that of the work of a serial killer who terrorized the city a few years earlier. Talton, author of the award-winning David Mapstone ("Cactus Heart") series, demonstrates his versatility in depicting the little-known world of the hospital pain nurse. A strong series launch, for all collections. [See Prepub Mystery, "LJ" 12/08.]

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