Dr. Death

Psychologist Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis are confronted with the murder of Dr. Eldon Mate aka Dr. Death, a controversial doctor who is responsible for many assisted suicides...

Dr. Death is a good thriller, though a bit slow-paced and there is not much action. While the end was surprising, it was also a bit strange.

Some quotes from the book

No earthquakes or wars interceded by sundown, so the death merited a lead story on the evening news.

[...] the usual municipal division of labor: one guy working for every five standing around.

"I always thought when you peeled away all the medico-legal crap, he was just a homicidal nut with a medical degree. Now he's the victim of a psycho."

Real life always transcends the rule books.

Had he been drawn to medicine in order to get closer to death?

"I'll rest when I'm dead."

"Buying a hotel. Guy like that, rich honcho, gotta be used to delegating. Why would he do his own dirty work? So what the hell's an alibi worth?"

"Guess next to killing people, reading was his favorite thing."

No accent; the merest softening at the end of each syllable. She could've found employment giving phone sex.

"He claimed he was helping people." - "The devil claims he's an angel. Back when I knew Eldon, he wasn't interested in helping anyone but himself."

"Everyone seems to have figured things out except me."

"I guess he's an optimist, buying porcelain in earthquake country."

I sat there feeling like an unwitting character in a candid video.

From his bed in the service porch, Spike played a prolonged snore solo.

My fridge is an old friend of his, and he greeted it with a small smile, removing a half-gallon of milk and a ripe peach.

"Basically, he's this big huge brain machine with the emotions of a little kid."

"I think life's essentially an avoidance paradigm: people do things to avoid being punished."

No one can make "sir" sound like an insult the way a cop can.

For the next sixty-three minutes I used every anger-reduction trick I knew while warming a hard plastic chair as Moore answered the phone and moved paper around.

Very few cars were parked on the street, and the unmarked, fifty yards up, was as inconspicuous as a roach on a fridge.

"Eric's right. Nothing is complicated. You're born, life sucks, you die."

Her openness felt fresh and clean and odd. I'd been hanging around too long with cops, lawyers, psychopaths, other evasive creatures.

"Everything is possible," he said. "That's the problem."

What do you say to your mother when she's asked you to help her leave you?