Don't Say a Word

New York City psychiatrist Nathan Conrad possesses everything required for a good, normal life--a successful practice on Central Park West, an adoring wife and a lovely daughter. He also has a reputation for dealing with the hard cases that most of his uptown colleagues prefer to pass on: catatonics, schizophrenics, the criminally insane. In this taut, superbly plotted thriller, Klavan, an Edgar-winner also writing as Keith Peterson, interweaves Dr. Conrad's disparate worlds to riveting effect. Soon after he begins treating a young woman accused of a particularly brutal murder, Conrad receives a chilling phone call at home. Suddenly his safe private life becomes a nightmarish game board, with Sport and Maxwell, two vividly drawn psychopaths, key players in his terrifying ordeal. Maxwell smiles and hums when he hurts people; Sport finds this a handy behavior in an accomplice. And the reader, meanwhile, roots for Dr. Conrad all the way to this brisk novel's heart-stopping conclusion. Major ad/promo; movie rights optioned by Kopelson Productions/Warner. (May)