Monday, April 20, 2009

Jon Talton's The Pain Nurse


Fourth-generation Arizonan, Jon Talton, developed his writing style for over 20 years as a journalist working at newspapers in Denver, San Diego, Cincinnati, Charlotte and Phoenix.


Jon's columns have appeared in newspapers throughout North America and now he is back with a new mystery, The Pain Nurse.


Publisher's Weekly aptly remarks, "Talton's authentic depiction of hospital life lends heft, as do his searing descriptions of Borders's physical pain and mental anguish during recovery." It should since Talton wrote it tapping into his own horrible surgery for a spinal tumor.Talton likes this review from Kirkus: "A nurse who understands pain, a cop who's got plenty of it and a cold case turned hot mesh smoothly in the latest from Talton (Cactus Heart, 2007, etc.). Her friends know that, bright as she is, special nurse Cheryl Beth Wilson, an expert in pain medication, has a brain that can go woefully fuzzy. Take her senseless, joyless affair with Dr. Gary Nagle, the self-proclaimed golden boy of surgery at Cincinnati Memorial Hospital. For starters, it plunges Cheryl Beth into a rivalry with Christine Lustig, a powerhouse female doctor whose marriage to Nagle has ended but whose interest in him remains. Not only does Cheryl Beth have an enemy she doesn't need, she also has a motive for murder when Lustig is discovered hacked to death.


Fortunately for Cheryl Beth, there's at least one cop who refuses to regard her as a person of interest-or rather whose interest in her is altogether different. Will Borders likes smart, funny, candid Cheryl Beth a lot. Even more to the point, he's convinced the Lustig homicide bears the MO of a certain born-again serial killer. Now that he's been sidelined by spinal surgery, however, Will's sleuthing is confined to what he can do from a wheelchair until Cheryl Beth becomes his sleuthing partner and perhaps something more. Nicely done. Though she's a pain nurse, Cheryl Beth is a pleasure."


Meet Jon as he discuses this title at The Poisoned Pen Bookstore on Tuesday, April 28 at 7 pm

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