In walks the Pain Nurse with her smiling face and sympathetic good humor to make you feel all better.   Not in The Pain Nurse.  Talton is a great writer and I have reviewed several of his books, Cactus Heart and Arizona Dreams both come to mind.  I have enjoyed each of them in the Mapstone series, but I think he has done one even better here with Cheryl Beth, a special kind of nurse who has to concentrate her abilities on understanding patients and their needs.

Will Borders, a former detective with the Cincinnati Police Department, has to have major surgery to remove a tumor on his spinal chord. While he is being wheeled through the maze of the hospital's basement to an imaging room, he and the attendant who is pushing his gurney come across a crime scene, all taped and with many police hanging around. Some of those police don't like Will Borders anymore because they think he turned on them by becoming one of the resentment filled IA (Internal Affairs) officers.  Borders looks at the scene and notices something very telling about it, tries to let Dodds, his old partner, know about it and is brushed aside.  Enter Cheryl Beth to administer pain meds to Borders, and he remembers he has seen her before, at the murder scene.  Dodds thinks she is a possible person of interest, because she was involved in an extra-marital affair with the husband of the murdered doctor.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, as much as I have each of the others I have reviewed by Talton.  He has a delightful insight into human nature and an ability to bring that humanness to life in his characters.  Dodds finally realizes his old partner wasn't such a bad guy after all and although there are pitfalls along the way for The Pain Nurse and Borders, I think that they would make a great crime fighting team in future stories about the Cincinnati Police Dept.  Great book Jon, I loved it and the outcome was a cliffhanger, right to the last page.  Thanks for the pleasure of the read.