From Publishers Weekly
From the author of Hanging Time and Burning Time comes an intense thriller centering around the suspicious death of a former psychiatric patient, Raymond Cowles. Fourteen years before he's found dead with a plastic bag over his head, Cowles was "cured" of his homosexual fantasies by the beautiful and ambitious Clara Treadwell, then a resident at the New York Psychiatric Centre. Now Treadwell, currently director of the center, and her former mentor, Harold Dickey, face allegations of malpractice and sexual impropriety arising from Cowles's death. Detective April Woo and Sergeant Mike Sanchez of the NYPD quickly become twin thorns in Treadwell's side, and romance blossoms between them. When someone begins playing malicious gags on Treadwell (used condoms planted in her desk-drawer and daybook), she blames Dickey, whom she seduced and discarded on her way to the top. Treadwell's trouble doubles when a lethal mixture of booze and Elavil kills the embittered man who'd loved and helped her. Woo and Sanchez realize there's a connection between the deaths of Dickey and Cowles, but they must walk a long and tortuous road before getting at the truth. On the way to a predictable ending, Glass provides several surprises, characters motivated by a lively cast of inner demons and, above all, a world where much is not as it initially seems. In Glass's dark vision, the cops need policing, and the shrinks are in dire need of psychiatric help. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
M.J. Wilde's brisk, clear enunciation creates a likable, realistic picture of April Woo, New York City police detective on the trail of a serial killer. Woo's Chinese accent is read as firm but light and is well portrayed. Woo's partner, Mike, comes from the Bronx, and Wilde handles his New York vernacular with rapid precision as he and Woo discuss each case enroute to the crime scene. Guttural sounds of fighting and vomiting during interrogation are graphic, yet well done. This fast-paced mystery, with its extraordinary gender distinctions, draws listeners into the story and holds them to the gripping conclusion. Wilde is a talented narrator. G.D.W. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
In her sixth book, Glass brings back NYPD Detective April Woo, her partner Mike Sanchez, and psychiatrist Jason Frank. This time, the focus is on New York's prestigious Psychiatric Centre, its director, Dr. Clara Treadwell, and the tragic suicide of Ray Cowles, one of Treadwell's former patients. Unfortunately, this is a tangled and confusing story, which lacks Glass' usual taut plotting and gripping suspense. The plot revolves around the discovery that Cowles' suicide may have been a homicide. Along with the main plot, there are assorted subplots involving Woo and her quest for advancement, Sanchez's oft-foiled attempts to win Woo's affections, and Frank's on-again-off-again marriage. Despite its lack of focus, the novel is worth buying for Glass' flashes of ingenuity and humor as she describes Woo's demanding, old-fashioned Chinese mother and the ambivalent relationship between Woo and Sanchez. Another plus: Glass' intriguing descriptions of cop-shop politics. A misstep, yes, but a series worth supporting. Emily Melton


Midwest Book Review
A series of murders led to a prestigious psychiatric center in New York, involving a celebrated analyst and her coveted position. With the threat of malpractice looming, Dr. Treadwell must find a way to clear her name and discover the real killer, whose identity is masked in a trail of puzzles and romantic entanglements.


Review
"An intense thriller...Glass provides several surprises, characters with a lively cast of inner demons and, above all, a world where nothing is as it initially seems."


"Glass clearly knows her psychology....The corruption of power, the power of love, and the clash of cultures--all contribute to the reader's enjoyment."


"Detective Woo is the next generation descended from McBain's 87th Precinct."



Review
"An intense thriller...Glass provides several surprises, characters with a lively cast of inner demons and, above all, a world where nothing is as it initially seems."


"Glass clearly knows her psychology....The corruption of power, the power of love, and the clash of cultures--all contribute to the reader's enjoyment."


"Detective Woo is the next generation descended from McBain's 87th Precinct."



From the Publisher
"An intense thriller...Glass provides several surprises, characters with a lively cast of inner demons and, above all, a world where nothing is as it initially seems."
"Glass clearly knows her psychology....The corruption of power, the power of love, and the clash of cultures--all contribute to the reader's enjoyment."
"Detective Woo is the next generation descended from McBain's 87th Precinct."



From the Inside Flap
In a pricey bachelor pad, a tormented man loses the battle for his soul...and dies a terrible death, apparently by his own hand....

In a huge hospital complex, an ex-nurse steals through the halls, hiding behind a phony ID...and plotting to exact a terrifying revenge....

In an elegant high-rise, a driven psychiatrist tries to manipulate the truth...and escape punishment for the sins of her past....

Deadly obsessions at a prestigious psychiatric institute, where people are dying--and killing--for love, lead NYPD Detective April Woo and eminent psychiatrist Jason Frank into the dangerous and shadowy area of sabotage and criminal responsibility--in an institution where a cold-blooded killer lurks...and where words can be the most lethal weapon of all.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Raymond Cowles died of love on the evening of his thirty-eighth birthday.  It happened on Sunday, October 31, after a long battle for his soul.  As with many bitter conflicts, the end was abrupt and unexpected.  In the same way as love had come on him unexpectedly and caught him by surprise after a lifetime of loneliness and despair, death crept up on Ray from behind without his even knowing that his release from ecstasy and anguish was at hand.

Since his twenties, Ray had flipped past the passages about love in the books he read.  The movie versions of passion and lust seemed stupid and unbelievable to him.  Love was supposed to happen to men like him when scantily dressed, big-breasted women flashed the look that said "I'll do anything.  Anything at all."

Lorna had looked at him with those eyes; other women had, too.  Many other women.  Sometimes Raymond had even thought he'd seen it in the eyes of Dr. Treadwell.  He never got it.  Love to him was like a foreign language for which he had all the clues but couldn't figure out the meaning.  And he had learned to live without it as his own personal cross to bear, like a dyslexic who could never really read, or a patient with a terminal illness that wouldn't go all the way and end his misery for a long, long time.

Until six months ago, Raymond Cowles thought he had all his problems solved.  He had made work the focus of his life, tried to find the same satisfactions in his personal life other people experienced in theirs.  He wanted to feel what other people felt, and when he couldn't, he acted as if he did.

Then, six months ago, Ray Cowles finally understood what life was all about.  He fell in love.  The paradox was that real love, the kind that smacked into one so hard it turned a person all the way around, didn't always happen as it should.  The great passion of Raymond Cowles's life came too late and was spiritually messy.  Even though he was a man experienced at battling demons, Ray's new demon was the worst he'd encountered.

With Dr. Treadwell's help he'd conquered all the others.  First the demons that told him he was a bad child.  Then the ones that told him he was stupid, not up to his studies.  The big ones that said he was incompetent at his jobs.  And always in the background there were those demons that told him he could never attract a girl, never satisfy a woman.  These particular demons continued to torture him even after he met Lorna, the endlessly sweet and understanding girl he married.

The killer demon told him he was a failure at everything, even the years of psychoanalysis to which he had resorted half a lifetime ago for a cure.  This was the demon that whispered to him in his sleep that his sudden and overwhelming passion at age thirty-seven was beyond disgusting and immoral.  Love, for Raymond Cowles, was a fall from grace into the deepest pit of depravity from which abyss he was bound to fall even further into the very fires of Hell.

In the months prior to his death, as Raymond fell deeper from grace into lust and corruption, he wanted nothing more than to surrender at last to the first real feeling of contentment and joy he had ever experienced.  But he wanted to fall and be saved with his love absolved.  Surely everyone had the right to surrender to passion and be released from the excruciating anguish of sin.  He had that right, didn't he?

But absolution didn't come, and once again Raymond Cowles's dreams were full of far-off women--high on cliffs when he was on the ground, or on shore when he was way out at sea.  In dream after dream, these women waved their arms at him and told him, "Watch out, watch out."  And each time he awoke in a panic because he didn't know what to watch out for.

Then on October 31, at the very start of his new life, Raymond's world collapsed.  He felt he had no warning.  He was cornered.  For a few moments he was alone.  And then he wasn't alone.  He was trapped with a person who wanted to kill him.

"Save me, save me." He tried to scream into the phone, into the hall, into the lobby of the building, out on the noisy street.  Save me!

He longed to reach for a life preserver, but there wasn't one.  Where was one?  Where was a lifeboat?  Where was safety?

Help!

At the end he was mute.  He couldn't cry out for help or make one move to save himself.  In his last moments of panic, when Raymond Cowles was too frantic and distraught to make a sound, the very thing he had never been able to watch out for slipped out of the noisy Halloween night of dress-up and reveling on Columbus Avenue and took his breath away.



    

FROM THE PUBLISHER

People connected to the most prestigious psychiatric center in New York are dying - and killing - for love, and the caring profession is in serious trouble. If former patient Raymond Cowles's death on Halloween is ruled a suicide, Dr. Clara Treadwell, Cowles's analyst of long ago and now the head of the psychiatric center, may well be liable for a whopping malpractice suit that would mark the end of her career. For Dr. Treadwell to be found innocent of contributing to Raymond's death, the Quality Assurance Committee she's carefully organized in the person of Jason Frank must find a way to clear her name. But if Raymond Cowles's death is ruled a homicide, April Woo has to find out who killed Dr. Treadwell's former patient...and why. As the cops and the analyst struggle to uncover the truth, ghosts emerge from the tortured pasts of the victim and his doctors - all still tormented years later by various kinds of illicit love. April Woo and her partner Detective-Sergeant Mike Sanchez are forced to face their own conflicts about loving mothers, clashing cultures, their futures in the department, and their deepening attraction to each other. As Jason searches through the old file on the victim for a clue to his death after a seemingly successful treatment, Jason too must confront the cost of loving, and of his hard-won integrity. Then Dr. Treadwell is injured in her office and a second unnatural death occurs in the very heart of the center. The murder brings Jason and April up against one of the most dangerous killers they've ever encountered, a man tired of waiting for justice to prevail.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

From the author of Hanging Time and Burning Time comes an intense thriller centering around the suspicious death of a former psychiatric patient, Raymond Cowles. Fourteen years before he's found dead with a plastic bag over his head, Cowles was "cured" of his homosexual fantasies by the beautiful and ambitious Clara Treadwell, then a resident at the New York Psychiatric Centre. Now Treadwell, currently director of the center, and her former mentor, Harold Dickey, face allegations of malpractice and sexual impropriety arising from Cowles's death. Detective April Woo and Sergeant Mike Sanchez of the NYPD quickly become twin thorns in Treadwell's side, and romance blossoms between them. When someone begins playing malicious gags on Treadwell (used condoms planted in her desk-drawer and daybook), she blames Dickey, whom she seduced and discarded on her way to the top. Treadwell's trouble doubles when a lethal mixture of booze and Elavil kills the embittered man who'd loved and helped her. Woo and Sanchez realize there's a connection between the deaths of Dickey and Cowles, but they must walk a long and tortuous road before getting at the truth. On the way to a predictable ending, Glass provides several surprises, characters motivated by a lively cast of inner demons and, above all, a world where much is not as it initially seems. In Glass's dark vision, the cops need policing, and the shrinks are in dire need of psychiatric help. (Nov.)

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