Obsessed

Rick R. Reed
Dell Publishing (2006)
ISBN 0440208556
Reviewed by Sondra Fowler for Reader Views (3/07)

Somewhere between sanity and madness lays a fine line, for some it is a tightrope walked daily, a fight for balance to be won or lost.  That fight is lost one of two ways.  Some simply lose their balance and fall, others are pushed.  Randy Mazursky was pushed by the murder of his wife Maggie, Pat Young was pushed by the isolation caused by being confined to a wheel chair, and Joe MacAree was pushed by a family he would not talk about.  The murder of Maggie Mazursky is the common thread of this high-wire act. 

Joe MacAree reads a newspaper story covering the murder of 23-year-old Maggie Mazursky and smiles. Randy, distraught over the murder of his wife, returns home to where Maggie was killed and finds a silver cigarette lighter with the initials J.D.M. engraved on it.  Instead of turning it in the police he slips it in his pocket.  Pat Young, watching out her window, sees a strange man leaving the duplex where the Mazurskys live; instead of calling the police, she bides her time hoping to blackmail the murderer. 

Joe is a serial killer who up until this point had been almost sane but he misplaced his silver monogrammed lighter, a gift from his wife Anne.  He was sure he lost it when he murdered Maggie Mazursky and he had to get that lighter back. Joe’s wife Anne discovered newspaper articles about murdered women and a journal in Joe’s desk drawer then took steps to discover the man she married. The next day Joe told his wife, Anne, that he must go to an impromptu meeting for work and instead returned to the Mazursky’s home to search for his lighter. Pat Young spied Joe leaving the Mazursky’s again but this time she confronted him, threatening him with exposure and blackmailing him all the while pushing him deeper into the abyss of insanity. 

“Obsessed” is a wicked ride following a killer, a grieving husband, a lonely woman and unsuspecting wife. It is well-written, suspenseful and hard to put down.  The story is heavy in erotica and seedy moments - down, dirty and real. 

Make comment on weblog