CASSIA

In Mallery’s thriller, a doctor at a psychiatric hospital is desperate to help his dying wife.

Mallery’s latest thriller centers on Jack Temple, a doctor at St. Vincent’s Psychiatric Hospital, where he and his assistant Lillian Anderson are working on developing Kyronane, the star product of Ryker Pharmaceuticals. The drug seems very promising in treating certain personality disorders at St. Vincent’s, and the true indicator of its worth is its effect on a vicious murderer named Edmund Lewis Lasker. “If Kyronane worked on him,” Dr. Temple thinks, “it would work on anyone.” Temple is distracted at work when his wife, Wendy, appears to suffer a cerebral hemorrhage. Wendy, who had been “a blur of color, a streak of energy, a dervish,” is suddenly an invalid on the brink of death. When Temple mentions to Anderson the research of Dr. Benjamin Libet (who theorized that since nerves are firing about an action before someone actually does it, the subconscious must be governing some of that nerve activity), the stage is set to involve a mental patient named Cassia and an ultimate confrontation with Lasker. Theoretically, the doctors can test the drug on Lasker but prevent him from actually acting upon any evil intent. Mallery weaves the multiple strands of his plot together with practiced skill, moving each chapter along at a brisk pace that usually accelerates in a moment of suspense. The book’s most serious defect is one that’s endemic to thrillers in general: The characters tend to be poorly fleshed out, except for Dr. Temple and his wife, who are bound by a deep love. And Mallery’s mastery of pacing will keep readers hooked right to the surprise ending.

An effective, thought-provoking medical thriller.