After the grueling years of medical school, internship and residency, Ivy Pennington is thrilled to finally be a full-fledged trauma physician working in a Seattle hospital emergency room. Her financial prospects look good, so she’s just moved into a new apartment. She’s in the midst of celebrating her new digs with her rowdy cousins, when an angry knock interrupts their fun. Ivy’s new neighbor is tired and pissed. He takes one look at Ivy, who’s holding a bowl of condoms given to her as a gag gift, and immediately assumes she’s a slut. After a terse confrontation, he leaves, and Ivy wonders why such a good looking hunk is such a tight-ass.

Ivy and her neighbor, Vincent D’Ambruzzi, are destined to cross paths again just a few weeks later. D’Ambruzzi is a police detective currently on the case of a vicious serial rapist whose latest victim has arrived at Ivy’s hospital. Vincent appears shortly thereafter to investigate. Neither Ivy nor Vincent realize that another player is also at the hospital - the rapist himself, who has followed his victim to make sure she doesn’t die (he wants his victims to live so they can suffer emotionally for years to come). The rapist is impressed with Ivy’s medical skills and becomes obsessed with the physician, believing that she is the only decent woman in a world full of bitches. As he tries to get closer to her, an oblivious Ivy becomes emotionally involved with Vincent, a tortured hero if there ever was one.

Andersen’s heroes tend to be on the tough side, but Vincent’s alpha rating is far beyond any of her other male characters, before or since. His short-lived, disastrous marriage to a woman who liked to sleep around has left him unable to trust any other female. Once he and Ivy make love, he responds by becoming increasingly jealous, suspicious and paranoid, and he eventually utters the cruelest remark I’ve ever encountered in a love scene. Right up through page 300 of the novel, he does his best to push Ivy away with his baseless accusations of infidelity, but for some reason Ivy decides she loves him and puts up with his irrational behavior much longer than any intelligent woman should. Vincent’s final apology and his avowals of change come far too late to redeem him. Frankly, I’m sick of alleged heroes who think all women are whores because they’ve had one bad relationship. I once dated a blonde-haired, green-eyed guy who broke my heart, but I don’t consider all similar guys to be Satan’s spawn. Shouldn’t any intelligent person judge other people as individuals?

Without a satisfying romance, Obsessed succeeds on its merit as a suspense novel. Fortunately, Andersen knows how to craft a taut page turner. Although the identity of the rapist is revealed fairly early on, the suspense comes from wondering how and when he will finally be able to confront Ivy, the object of his obsession. The climactic scene is disturbingly violent but Ivy proves to be a resourceful, courageous woman, not a helpless victim.

In fact, Ivy is a strong heroine whose smarts, family loyalty and ambition don’t explain why she would tolerate Vincent’s garbage. I guess she could see the good person behind the emotionally abusive behavior, but any guy who stopped in the middle of lovemaking to demand that I tell him which other man taught me a given move would be thrown out of bed and not given a second chance.

Several romance readers have noted that they enjoyed Andersen’s early Zebra releases more than her recent Avon ones. It’s hard to compare Obsessed with novels such as Baby Don’t Go and All Shook Up because they are so different. It’s like comparing a Ron Howard movie with one directed by Quentin Tarantino. My recommendation is for you to take a walk on the dark side with Susan Andersen and judge for yourself if you’re glad that she’s lightened up.

--Susan Scribner