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Dr. Peter Zak is a forensic neuropsychologist at the Pearce Psychiatric Institute. He's always been fascinated by studying the brain, and often works in the area of dementia, especially interesting to him since his father was a victim of Alzheimer's. At the Institute, he is supervising a post doctoral candidate by the name of Emily Ryan who was working part time on a fellowship. Emily also has another job at an MRI facility called University Medical Imaging (UMI) which is doing leading-edge work on the brain, and particularly working with victims of a disease known as Lewy body dementia. Emily is an attractive young woman who behaves in a very seductive manner to the males around her, and Peter finds he is not immune to her charms, in spite of the fact that he is happily involved in a relationship with an investigator by the name of Anne Squires. Emily is being stalked, and Peter finds himself feeling very protective of her, to the point where he is having difficulty maintaining his clinical distance. As the narrative continues, she faces other dangers; and Peter begins to suspect that she may have set up the situations herself since she has a strong need to be the center of attention, which sometimes interferes with her ability to work effectively with her patients. At the same time, the activities at the MRI center don't seem quite kosher. Annie's uncle is sent there after he exhibits signs of dementia and has a rather unpleasant MRI experience. Afterwards, his health deteriorates rapidly and the center is in a hurry to harvest his brain. As a result, Peter decides to have an MRI done. Although that goes smoothly, the results of the test are unexpected and lead him to face personal fears about his own mental health. The suspense builds as the stalking incidents escalate. When one of the doctors at UMI is killed in a bizarre accident involving the MRI equipment, it opens the door for an investigation which shows several suspicious patient deaths, which Annie and Peter proceed to investigate. Was the death an accident? Did Emily cause it through carelessness with the equipment? Or perhaps the head of the center, a man with an unparalleled ego, felt threatened by his peer and murdered him. Ephron really excels at planting the seeds of doubt about the actions of several of the characters. I was never sure until late in the book whether Emily was guilty or not. However, the ending was very close to over the top, and some of the characters became caricatures-you could almost hear one of them cackling. In spite of that, I enjoyed the book and the information on the study of dementia. It was not overly technical, and the suspense element was very strong. Fans of the medical thriller will enjoy Ephron's work.
Reviewed by Maddy Van Hertbruggen, December 1903
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