A Tightly raveled mind / Diane Lawson.

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Title:

A Tightly raveled mind / Diane Lawson.

Author:

Lawson, Diane.

ISBN:

9781935955924

Publication Information:

El Paso, TX : Cinco Puntos Press, 2014.

Physical Description:

281 pages

Abstract:

"Sigmund Freud would have liked a mixed-up dish like Dr. Nora Goodman, a sexy forty-something psychoanalyst with whacko rich patients who can't seem to allow themselves happiness, love or success. She's not exactly a steady customer herself, born to a ranting bipolar Talmud scholar and a mother with a heart as cold as a Chicago slaughterhouse. But now she has two kids and an overbearing psychiatrist husband. She hates him. She hates his Jewish old money world. Nora wants a new life sans husband but what she gets is something terribly different. It starts one Monday morning when her eight o'clock patient blows himself to smithereens. The police think it's an accident. Nora thinks it's murder. Another patient dies mysteriously. Nora hires private investigator Mike Ruiz, a tightly wound ex-cop who couldn't care less for Sigmund. "Oh, Freud," Mike Ruiz says. "Isn't he dead?" Freud is always watching while the unlikely pair struggle to an unexpected end"-- Provided by publisher.

Subject Term:

Women psychoanalysts -- Fiction.

Marital conflict -- Fiction.

Ex-police officers -- Fiction.

Murder -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

San Antonio (Tex.) -- Fiction.

Genre:

Psychological fiction, American.

Detective and mystery stories.

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Avon-Washington Township Public Library	Adult Mystery Fiction Book Paperback	120791002437678	M LAW	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

A psychoanalyst's sanity unravels when several patients die and she falls for the private investigator she's hired to help.

Sigmund Freud would have liked Dr. Nora Goodman, a sexy forty-something psychoanalyst with her handful of neurotic patients who can't seem to allow themselves happiness, love, or success. She's not exactly a steady customer herself, born to a ranting bipolar Talmudic scholar and a mother with a heart as cold as a slaughterhouse on the Kansas prairie? in January. But now she has two kids and an overbearing psychiatrist husband. She hates him. She hates his insular social world. Nora wants a new life sans husband, but what she gets is something terribly different. It starts one Monday morning when her eight o'clock patient blows himself to smithereens. The following week, another patient dies. The police see the first as an accident, the second a straightforward suicide. Nora thinks her practice is being targeted by a killer. She hires private investigator Mike Ruiz, a tightly wound ex-cop who couldn't care less for Sigmund. "Oh, Freud," Mike says. "Isn't he dead??" Freud is always watching while the unlikely pair struggle to an unexpected end.

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Lawson puts her professional experience as a psychoanalyst to good use in her engrossing debut, which melds an unusual mystery plot with insights into the inner world of a psychotherapist. Although psychoanalysis "is not and has never been the fashion in Texas,"¿ Nora Goodman manages to run a successful San Antonio practice on the grounds of her ex-husband's childhood home. Early on, Nora warns the readers of what will come: "The Monday that my patient, Howard Westerman, blew himself to kingdom come started like any other workday."¿ The circumstances of her patient's death in an explosion at his chemistry lab cause Nora to wonder whether she bears responsibility for the tragedy if, in fact, Westerman took his own life. When the police refuse to take seriously her suspicion that someone murdered the man, she turns for help to a PI, Miguel Ruiz, who has little use for Freud. Strong characterization and prose more than compensate for an unsatisfying ending. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Review

A cunning, elegantly written comedy of manners in the form of a murder mystery in which a psychoanalyst finds her wealthy clientele dropping. Literally. Freudian analyst Nora Goodman carries a caseload that one presumes is a representative sample of the upper tier of San Antonio society, from a taciturn chemistry instructor unhappily married to an oil heiress to a polymorphously perverse doctor to an embittered divorce taking out her lifelong resentments on Goodmanwho has her own issues, starting with a manipulative, patronizing psychiatrist husband, two rambunctious children and some unresolved feelings toward her dead parents. The last thing Nora needs is more tsoris. But that's just what she gets as, one by one, the people in her appointment book meet sudden, violent ends. The police believe these deaths to be accidents or coincidences; and since Nora, being a dedicated Freudian, believes in neither, she seeks help from an ex cop-turned-private detective named Mike Ruiz, whose sneering contempt for Freud seems to be shielding his own private demons. You'd think being in a world populated by such tightly wound neurotics would get dreary or annoying, or both. But Lawson, herself a San Antonio-based psychoanalyst making her publishing debut, makes the journey a pleasant one with a witty, assured narrative style that renders both physical and emotional scenery with economical astuteness and grace. The way the story ends makes you think there's the barest chance Nora and Mike could continue their spiky relationship into another novel. And why not? If San Antonio can support a pro basketball franchise with five championships, it certainly deserves a classy crime-solving tandem staking a claim for the city in the mystery genre. Remember how amazed Norman Mailer was after reading George V. Higgins' first novel that a member of "the fuzz" could write so well? Well, let it likewise be asserted of Lawson: This shrink can really throw it down. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Library Journal Review

Starred Review. Dr. Nora Goodman does the Freudian shtick: seven patients total, each of whom she sees five days a week, 50 minutes a session, for years on end. Then her patients start dying. There's an explosion here, a suicide there. The police don't see anything odd but she does. Is someone killing her clients? She hires a PI to investigate; he's a former policeman who left the force for some dark reason of his own. Nora has problems to deal with, too. She's separated from her psychiatrist husband; what started off nasty has grown steadily nastier. And Nora isn't all that well wired. Psychiatry is her way to avoid remembering her tortured childhood with a brutish father and uncaring mother. VERDICT This edging-toward-zany debut novel may be the most psychiatric detective story you ever read, but it's a delight, in large part because Nora, the narrator, is a compulsive psychologizer. A surprise twist at the end wraps up the plot neat and tidy. Aficionados of detective fiction will savor the strong characters and story line, suspense and humor intermixed-what's not to love?-David Keymer, Modesto, CA (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.