October 2, 1996
From the author of Hanging Time and Burning Time comes an intense thriller centering around the suspicious death of a former psychiatric patient, Raymond Cowles. Fourteen years before he's found dead with a plastic bag over his head, Cowles was "cured" of his homosexual fantasies by the beautiful and ambitious Clara Treadwell, then a resident at the New York Psychiatric Centre. Now Treadwell, currently director of the center, and her former mentor, Harold Dickey, face allegations of malpractice and sexual impropriety arising from Cowles's death. Detective April Woo and Sergeant Mike Sanchez of the NYPD quickly become twin thorns in Treadwell's side, and romance blossoms between them. When someone begins playing malicious gags on Treadwell (used condoms planted in her desk-drawer and daybook), she blames Dickey, whom she seduced and discarded on her way to the top. Treadwell's trouble doubles when a lethal mixture of booze and Elavil kills the embittered man who'd loved and helped her. Woo and Sanchez realize there's a connection between the deaths of Dickey and Cowles, but they must walk a long and tortuous road before getting at the truth. On the way to a predictable ending, Glass provides several surprises, characters motivated by a lively cast of inner demons and, above all, a world where much is not as it initially seems. In Glass's dark vision, the cops need policing, and the shrinks are in dire need of psychiatric help.