Fresh out of school, Dr. Crane takes on a new patient who both intrigues and unnerves him. Charming, manipulative, and amoral, Max has exactly the sort of mind Crane finds himself drawn to with fictional characters.As Max weaves himself into Crane’s life, Crane realizes that while fiction might be safe, Max certainly is not.When the professional line between them thins, who gets to define where … gets to define where one man ends and the other begins?
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Max is a standalone novel that takes the reader on a wild and crazy ride – there are mind games within mind games and even at the end, I wasn’t sure what was real or fabricated by the characters. This book is definitely dark with scenes of violence, drug use, and other morally ambiguous and deplorable themes. This is not a book for people who want something light and fluffy.
I enjoyed this story immensely. I never knew exactly what was going on, but I had an idea where the book was heading, but the ending took me by complete surprise. The characters were so delightfully messed up and psychotic. Everything about this book had me on the edge of my seat – I just wished it was a bit longer and we could get more info on what happens after the happy ending (I think it qualifies as a happy ending…it’s as happy as it gets for Crane and Max).
This one is hard for me to review. On one hand I wanted to know the depravity that lied ahead in this one for Doc Crane, but one the other I did not particularly like either MC. Neither IMO had any qualities I wanted to hang onto. I did think Max was a good character in that he was interesting and scary in the sense he could make anything happen, but on the other he was so far gone, I have no idea if any of it was real or not. I have no idea his feelings at all. Dr. Dennis Crane found that he was into depravity and finally he was willing to accept this in the end.
Married and “straight” Dr. Crane is fresh out of school when he takes on Max, a psychopath, as a therapy patient. He’s immediately intrigued by him, and it’s not long before he’s leaping over every line to go “down the rabbit hole” with him. One sexual encounter leads to an entanglement that turns Crane’s life upside-down, threatening his marriage, his job, and his freedom.
I was blown away by this. There were two issues I had with it that prevented me from giving it a full five stars. For one, I am getting very tired of the “gay-for-you” trope and wished Deckard hadn’t included it here. In my opinion, it didn’t add anything to the story and could have been removed. For two, I had to suspend my disbelief a lot to accept the fact that a therapist would act as unprofessional as Crane did and so quickly. However, these two things didn’t tamper my enjoyment of the story. I was thoroughly entertained from beginning to end. Deckard’s talent is clear in the characterization of Max, who comes across as both delectably charming and a believable psychopath. I was in awe of the unreliable narration coupled with the intricacy of the plot. But my favorite thing of all was the ending. The whole time I was expecting something tragic, but the plot threads wrap up neatly and left me nothing but satisfied. Max and Crane get the ending I always hope for but never see. The transgressive nature of this book reminded me of Bret Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero, but while it is disturbing, provocative, and a thriller, it is also a romance. I’ll definitely be reading more of Bey Deckard’s work.