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In this novel, Leslie Glass juggles the lives of several characters to tell a story about obsession. New York Police Department Detective April Woo is investigating the suspicious death of Raymond Cowles in his posh bachelor pad. His estranged wife, Lorna, is convinced that her husband's death was murder and want it treated as such. The only clue that the police have is that Raymond had called a psychiatrist prior to his death. The police will go to the psychiatric hospital to try to make sense of this death. Clara Treadwell is one of the doctors in question. She has recently been promoted to head the hospital's psychiatric department. Her mentor and former lover, Dr. Harold Dickey, is resentful believing that he should have gotten the promotion. He still loves Clara and will do anything to have her back. When the police come to his door, he sees it as an opportunity to implicate Dr. Treadwell and use it to his advantage. The other player in the story is Bobbie Boudreau, a former male nurse who blames Treadwell for everything that has happened to him including the loss of his nursing license. He is secretly working at the hospital as a janitor and is plotting sweet revenge on the doctor before planning to kill her. Clara knows that she is being targeted by someone but does not have an idea on his identity. She is too busy hiding her own personal secrets. LOVING TIME is not a regular crime novel but more of a character study among the principals in this case. The author does not give the reader a mystery to solve but instead wants us to look inside the psyches of everyone at the hospital. We see how each character deals with his situation before the police come to the investigation. The novel is a bit confusing at first with all the different, independent strands going on in the book that eventually gets to the point by the end of the book. This work is a good book to learn about April Woo and some of the supporting cast. The reader learns how Detective Woo became who she is and her relationship with her domineering mother. Woo's relationship with her partner, Detective Mike Sanchez is a bit ambiguous, at best, for someone unfamiliar with this series. Finally there is Dr. Jason Frank, a psychiatrist who has worked as a consultant for the NYPD in a previous occasion. His troubled relationship with his actress wife serves as a comparison point with everything that is going on throughout the book. Loving Time is recommended for anyone who is looking for something different in an American police procedural.
Reviewed by Angel L. Soto, January 2003
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