On a blistering summer day, a bank robbery goes wrong, resulting in the deaths of all the hostages except Treva Williams. Pittsburgh psychologist and trauma expert Daniel Rinaldi is called in by the police to treat Treva. Soon an unforeseen series of events plunges the investigating officers, Sergeant Harry Polk, Detective Eleanor Lowrey, and Rinaldi into a vortex of mistaken identity, … kidnapping, and surprising revelations about District Attorney Leland Sinclair’s gubernatorial campaign. Is Sinclair somehow involved in the bank case?
Rinaldi’s attention is diverted by the suicide of a young patient and his growing attraction to Eleanor, as the recently-divorced Harry Polk spirals into an alcohol-driven, self-destructive free-fall. Then sudden death threats against Sinclair fuel a new frenzy of accusations and political maneuvering, and Rinaldi begins to make connections. Soon, what he knows – or thinks he knows – will pull him toward a shocking and possibly lethal confrontation.
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Clinical psychologist Dr. Daniel Rinaldi, in addition to maintaining a private practice, has been a consultant to the Pittsburgh Police Department for seven years. A victim of a violent crime himself, he understands only too well how profoundly other victims, whether official or civilian, can suffer and need help to recover when impacted by crime-bred violence.
In the middle of a therapy session with a carjacking victim, Rinaldi gets a call from Pittsburgh PD Detective Eleanor Lowrey, with whom he’s worked in the past. She explains that there’s “An armed robbery in progress. Midtown, the First Allegheny Bank. We’ve got uniforms, SWAT…Looks like a couple perps…Apparently somebody’s dead in there.” Rinaldi terminates the session and heads to the crime scene.
Although there are four hostages still in the bank, one, a woman named Treva Williams, has been released. She’s an emotional wreck, and Rinaldi does his best to console her under the circumstances. When the bank is finally sieged and Rinaldi is among those who get inside, what they find is utter carnage. Only a wounded security guard named Vickers has survived.
But while he’s eventually drawn into the situation as a therapist for Treva Williams, Rinaldi also becomes involved with the gubernatorial campaign of District Attorney Leland Sinclair, with whom he has a tenuous relationship, as well as varying mutual relationships with members of the Pittsburgh Police Department—i.e., the aforementioned Eleanor Lowrey: potentially amorous; her partner Detective Harry Polk: tenuous at best; and Lieutenant Stu Biegler: outright hostility. Moreover, Rinaldi learns from a professional colleague that a relatively young man, Andrew Parker, whom he knew from his time working at a psychiatric facility called Ten Oaks, has apparently committed suicide.
In what starts out as an apparently straightforward thriller but ultimately becomes, additionally, a neatly-paced and deftly-rendered whodunit, Rinaldi finds himself up against vicious killers and criminal plots in his efforts to solve multiple crimes and stay alive.
FEVER DREAM is the second of Dennis Palumbo’s Daniel Rinaldi mysteries. As I’ve indicated in reviews of other titles in this series, I don’t like to provide more than the sketchiest sense of the plotlines lest I inadvertently reveal any of the twists and surprises in a story with a superior sense of characterization befitting an author who, like Rinaldi, is a clinical psychologist, and who, as a Pittsburgh native, delivers a strong sense of place. That said, fans of mysteries which are both hardboiled and cerebral owe it to themselves to have a look at this novel and the series of which it’s a part, as long as they aren’t squeamish about street language, on-screen violence and, in some of the entries, sexuality.
I have been reading mysteries for over forty five years and was blown away by what distinguishes Dennis Palumbo’s Fever Dream. It makes a difference that Palumbo has been a successful screenwriter and therapist, because he brings the best in those two careers to bear in writing this first class mystery. He is a master of all the necessary elements of a good mystery — character development, dialogue, suspense, adrenaline rushes, crisp details, and connecting with his readers. In all this, there are three things which I really like about Fever Dream.
Stunning Twists and Turns: From Agatha Christie to Michael Connelly, I have never been so stunned or delighted by the twists and turns in a narrative as the ones I encountered in Fever Dream – and each of them serves to drive the plot deeper. That’s the work of an artist.
Paying Attention: We are served as well by the author’s career as a therapist – not with therapeutic maneuverings or psychobabble, but with what distinguishes really good therapists, spiritual advisors, and internists — paying attention. I was struck throughout the novel by the ways Palumbo pays attention to mood, subtleties, context and subtext in how he treats his characters and in the narrative, itself. All this occurs in the character and interactions of Dan Rinaldi, his protagonist; but it infuses the whole novel, as well.
Imagery Which Shocks and Delights: You will find your own favorites. Mine was Dan Rinaldi’s response to a threat in a tense situation: “In (his) hand was a gun. Thick. Ugly.” What an economy of words and substance! In another part of the narrative, Rinaldi captures in one brief paragraph the reality and depth of evil, itself. Again, the work of an artist.
This is a wonderful mystery – bon appétit.