Professor Maura Delaney’s book, “The Good Sociopath,” is about to hit the market with a neurosurgeon, Dr. Craig Canning, as her primary example. The publisher has even put his photograph on the cover.
Canning is arrogant and lacks genuine emotions (although he’s good at faking them), but his exceptional surgical skills have saved hundreds of lives. Canning doesn’t care one whit about his patients, but he glories in his reputation as one of the best in his profession
Then a young woman plunges to her death from a balcony in an apartment building where Canning also resides. Police rule it an accident, but Maura says she isn’t so sure. If Canning was responsible, Maura’s academic career will be in ruins, so she hires newly-minted private eye Annalisa Vega, a former Chicago PD detective, to recheck the police work. So begins “All The Way Gone,” Joanna Schaffhausen’s fourth novel featuring Annalisa.
Famous for tracking down a serial murderer dubbed the Lovelorn Killer, Annalisa is skeptical of the very idea of a good sociopath. Nevertheless, it’s a widely recognized phenomenon. Most sociopaths are not criminals. High functioning ones often possess qualities — including exceptional intelligence, charisma, charm and the ability to stay calm under pressure — that help them succeed in fields such as medicine, law, politics and business.
But when Vega meets Canning, she immediately gets a “bad vibe.”
Meanwhile, Vega’s newly-discovered teenage stepdaughter, Cassidy, the product of one of her husband’s extramarital affairs, needs help with her own problem. Cassidy’s girlfriend, Naomi, will die if she doesn’t get a kidney transplant, and so far no match has been found.
The best remaining chance would be her mother, who abandoned the family when Naomi was a toddler, but no one knows where she’s gone. As it turns out, she’s a psychopath, too, with no possibility that she’s one of the good ones.
Vega juggles the two cases with the skill readers of the series have come to expect of her. The dueling plot lines are also in Schaffhausen’s wheelhouse. She possesses a doctorate in psychology and has a long-standing interest in brain development.
The author’s prose is clear and tight, and she does a fine job of moving the story along at a swift and sometimes frantic pace, piling on twists that readers are unlikely to see coming.
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Bruce DeSilva, winner of the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award, is the author of the Mulligan crime novels including “The Dread Line.”
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