For a refreshing change, Ephron's fifth Dr. Peter Zak mystery (after 2003's Obsessed
) focuses on a person—the Boston-area forensic psychiatrist's love interest, detective Annie Squires—rather than a disease. A bomber is terrorizing Cambridge, striking at Harvard Law School and the city courthouse, and Annie believes these fatal explosions could be the work of Joe Klevinski, the abusive husband of Jackie, a recovering drug addict who's begun working in Annie's office. The case gets close to home when Jackie and her young daughter, Sophie, move into Zak's mother's apartment—and Klevinski shows up, manipulative and uninvited, at the little girl's birthday party. As the investigation narrows, the police begin to suspect an anarchist at work, a mysterious man on a motor scooter, as the bomber graduates to bigger symbols of authority as his targets. Is the governor of Massachusetts next? Ephron does a fine job of delivering adrenaline-pumping prose, and the cast of characters is consistently interesting. The warm bonds of business and affection that unite the regulars in this series never become cloying, and this book, like its predecessors, evokes a palpable sense of place. Agent, Gail Hochman. (Mar. 28)
FYI:
Ephron is the pseudonym for writing team Hallie Ephron and Dr. Don Davidoff.
