Compulsion: A Novel
Billy Bishop, the Russian-born adopted son of a billionaire, has all the  classic signs of a sociopath, but before he's arrested for the murder of Darwin  and Julia Bishop's infant daughter, his half sister, Nantucket police chief  North Anderson wants another opinion. Frank Clevenger, the forensic psychiatrist  evaluating Billy, isn't convinced of the teenager's guilt, especially when he  learns that Darwin has been abusing Billy for years. The victim of his own  father's abuse, Frank has difficulty maintaining appropriate emotional  boundaries in his dealings with the Bishops--not just with Billy, but also with  Julia, who becomes his lover. All the loose ends in this tidy little  psychological thriller are tied up a bit too neatly, and the denouement comes as  no surprise to anyone except perhaps Frank himself, who's a little too quick to  abandon his professional objectivity. Keith Ablow, a forensic psychiatrist like  his protagonist, has used his medical background before (Denial,Projection), but in his effort  to make the defenses and motivations of the characters in this novel completely  comprehensible to his readers, he sacrifices its subtlety and diminishes its  suspense.--Jane Adams