Every 15 Minutes

Dr. Eric Parrish is a psychiatrist at a local hospital. He also sees patients at his home. One day, he is called in for a consult in the emergency department at his hospital. Here he meets an elderly woman who is in with her grandson, Max. While talking to her, he’s questioning why he was called, the woman has no psychiatric issues that he can see. Once Max leaves, the room, he learns that the woman asked that he be called, the woman knows she doesn’t have much time left and would like him to talk to Max. Eric offers to help, if the grandson is willing. He offers his services to Max, and lets him make his decision. Later, Max calls him and sets up an appointment.

Max comes to Eric because he is suffering from OCD. He has a routine that he must repeat every fifteen minutes. Eric tries to help him, but a few days later, Max’s grandmother dies, and Max goes missing. Worried about Max, Eric goes looking for him, in the process, he puts himself in the middle of a murder investigation; a girl that Max likes is murdered.

Eric is between a rock and a hard place. The police are questioning him, asking him why he was the places he was and how he knows the murder victim. As much as he wants to clear his name, he also has doctor-patient confidentiality with Max – he can’t tell the police anything that Max told him in a therapy session. How will he clear his name while keeping his patients confidentiality?

While all this is going on, he is also dealing with a separation from his wife. They are in the process of getting divorced, and have set up a custody agreement for their seven-year old daughter, Hannah. They have been pretty lenient in the custody agreement up to this point, not always following exactly what it says, as Eric feels that he is doing what’s best for his daughter by keeping her in the house she grew up in. Problems begin to arise when his ex-wife decides to sell the house that she’s living in, the one that Hannah has grown up in. She also decides to follow the custody-agreement as written.

I found this book very interesting and hard to put down.