My Reading Nook

Dr. Rennie Newton has just spent the longest two weeks of her life doing her civic duty by serving on a jury. The case is murder and the accused, one Ricky Lozado, is an accused hit man who kills carefully without leaving a trace. Rennie has no choice but to deliver a verdict of not guilty — the prosecutor just didn’t prove Lozado guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Just days after Lozado’s release, one of Rennie’s professional rivals is brutally murdered. Rennie is immediately under suspicion by the police as she was often heard arguing with the popular doctor and was in contention with him for the post of director of surgery. SHE knows that she could never take the life of someone, but the police have no reason not to believe that she didn’t contract Lee Howell’s murder from the man she just released from a murder charge.

But there are things going on that worry Rennie. Someone has broken into her house and left roses with only a typewritten card with the words “I have a crush on you” on it. She feels violated and uneasy in her own home. It doesn’t help any when just a couple of days after the roses are left the police break into her home to search it without her knowledge or consent. The detective who breaks in is on a leave of absence from the police force, but he has an interest in bringing Lozado to justice.

Detective Wick Threadgill is intrigued by the mysterious Dr. Rennie Newton and sets out to discover all her secrets. And she has plenty of them, too. She’s an enigma to him. She never dates, just goes to work and back home and takes the occasional weekend to disappear on her ranch where she rides her horses.

As the police investigation escalates, Lozada’s attentions on Rennie increase. She already knows she doesn’t want to have anything to do with him, and she’s becoming interested in Wick despite her resolve to stay out of entanglements and he and Lozada have a history and a rivalry that puts Rennie in immediate danger.

Wick has nothing to lose by confronting the killer, who, like the prize scorpions he treasures, strikes so quickly Rennie may never see it coming.

The Crush by Sandra Brown
Published by Grand Central Publishing 2002
ISBN -10 0-446-61305-3
ISBN-13 978-0-446-61305-7