THE PAIN NURSE

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.