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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Apr 2015, 448 pages
Paperback:
Mar 2016, 448 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Rory L. Aronsky
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A visceral thriller, which brings you into the grip of a true sociopath and shows you how, in the quest to survive such ruthlessness, every minute counts.
Dr. Eric Parrish is the Chief of the Psychiatric Unit at Havemeyer General Hospital outside of Philadelphia. Recently separated from his wife Alice, he is doing his best as a single Dad to his seven-year-old daughter Hannah. His work seems to be going better than his home life, however. His unit at the hospital has just been named number two in the country and Eric has a devoted staff of doctors and nurses who are as caring as Eric is. But when he takes on a new patient, Eric's entire world begins to crumble. Seventeen-year-old Max has a terminally ill grandmother and is having trouble handling it. That, plus his OCD and violent thoughts about a girl he likes makes Max a high risk patient. Max can't turn off the mental rituals he needs to perform every fifteen minutes that keep him calm.
With the pressure mounting, Max just might reach the breaking point. When the girl is found murdered, Max is nowhere to be found. Worried about Max, Eric goes looking for him and puts himself in danger of being seen as a "person of interest" himself. Next, one of his own staff turns on him in a trumped up charge of sexual harassment. Is this chaos all random? Or is someone systematically trying to destroy Eric's life?
New York Times best selling author Lisa Scottoline's visceral thriller, Every Fifteen Minutes, brings you into the grip of a true sociopath and shows you how, in the quest to survive such ruthlessness, every minute counts.
Chapter One
I'm a sociopath. I look normal, but I'm not. I'm smarter, better, and freer, because I'm not bound by rules, law, emotion, or regard for you.
I can read you almost immediately, get your number right away, and push your buttons to make you do whatever I want. I don't really like you, but I'm so good at acting as if I do that it's basically the same thing. To you.
I fool you.
I fool everybody.
I've read that one out of twenty-four people is a sociopath, and if you ask me, the other twenty-three of you should be worried. One out of twenty-four people is 4 percent of the population, and that's a lot of sociopaths. Anorexics are 3 percent, and everybody talks about them. Schizophrenics are only 1 percent, but they get all the press. No one's paying any attention to sociopaths, or they think we're all killers, which is a misconception.
It's not being paranoid to worry about us. You should be more paranoid than you ...
Scottoline has mastered the sting; continuously poking as the novel progresses. Throughout Every Fifteen Minutes, as darker turns appear, the list of potential suspects grows. Each jab is a new "hornet" of a possibility, making the reader wonder, scared, who might be the true culprit. There are many red herrings in play, with some unexpected names considered. Are they really capable of the horrific acts that follow? Even when not reading the novel, it still whirs and works in the back of the reader's mind, with surprising possibilities emerging...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Rory L. Aronsky).
When the sociopath is revealed at the end of Every Fifteen Minutes, it's truly shocking because it doesn't seem possible. Nothing in the entire novel points to this particular person – or so it seems. But rereading after finding out who it is, throws the clues into sharp relief, sparking wonder at how they could have been missed. Yet, getting to know the characters is the bigger priority during the first read, so some clues will naturally slip by. Therefore, it should be easier to spot a sociopath in real life if there's ever a need, right?
You have to know what to look for. Scientists studying sociopaths estimate that 4% of the U.S. population have sociopathic characteristics. In 1941, Hervey Cleckley published The ...
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