Book Review: The Patient, D.S. Cross Book 3, Tim Sullivan
Book Review: The Patient, D.S. Cross Book 3, Tim Sullivan
You would think that D.S. George Cross would have enough cases to keep him busy without drumming up a new one. His boss certainly thinks so. The original investigator certainly thinks so. Cross himself might think so as well, if his mind worked that way.
However, Cross’ mind works differently than most other people’s minds do. He is “on the spectrum,” a euphemistic way of describing an autistic person. Cross does not intuitively know how to comfort the bereaved, how to cushion bad or unwelcome news, how to get along with others in the office. He is uncomfortable with noise, inflexible once his mind is made up, and almost incapable of changing his ways to suit others.
Most of all, though, Cross hates unanswered questions. When a mother shows up at the station declaring that her daughter has been murdered, Cross looks into her claim. The coroner and the lead investigator ruled the death to be a suicide or possibly an accidental overdose. Cross is initially inclined to believe them, until he realizes that the deceased was a young and devoted mother whose young child was in the next room. She had gotten herself clean to become a good mother. She never left her child alone and prevented even her ex, the father, from seeing his daughter unless he got clean. So why would she suddenly start using again without making some kind of arrangements for her daughter to be cared for safely? That could be dismissed as an addict making poor choices because of her addiction, but as more and more evidence arises, Cross is convinced that this is a case of murder.
The problem is that none of the evidence actually points to who might have done it.
As in all of the books in this amazing series, The Patient is as much about Cross and his team as it is about the investigation itself. George Cross may be difficult to deal with. He has managed, though, to accumulate a set of friends and family who can see past the spectrum to the person. These friends would do anything for George. He might not know how to reciprocate, but he is gradually understanding that these people want only the best for him and are always there for him. For him, the question of why they would do so is unfathomable. The fact that they do so is unmistakable. He may be difficult. He may be obtuse. He may be a lot of things. But he is also entirely committed to seeing justice done, he is devoted to doing the right thing for others (even if he sometimes completely misunderstands what the right thing is), and he is willing to make the effort to see things through the eyes of others.
I cannot pretend to intimately know what it is like to be autistic, though I can relate to having a brain that does not process information the same way that other people’s minds do. Tim Sullivan manages to humanize what can be a very frightening and frustrating situation to both the autistic and to their loved ones. I would hope that his character of George Cross can give some hope to others, that they are not broken because they are different, that they are not incompetent because they are different, that they are not unlovable because they are different. Perhaps, just maybe, it might also encourage all of us to be a little more charitable to our own neighbors, friends, and family.
Book Review: The Patient, D.S. Cross Book 3, Tim Sullivan