Book - Critical Conditions by Stephen White

Critical Conditions features a crime-solving shrink as the gimmick, actually a psychologist, not a psychiatrist. This book has the same sensational kind of cover as all the others I read, the crime-solving shrink has a convenient buddy on the force and a (strangely offstage for the entire book) wife with a disease-of-the-month. Oh yes, and an embattled TV personality. You would think that would result in a formulaic book, since these elements seem to have been drawn from the detective thriller plot element hat. Yet it seemed to be head-and-shoulders, or at least a head, above the dreck I have been reading lately. The shrink and his officemate seemed more personable, the ickiness of details of the crime memorably icky but in a personal way. It also is one of the rare books that attempts to deal with the emotional impact of the improbably high number of tragedies that afflict the friends and family of fictional detectives. This is a book of which I might actually look for others by the same author.