But the killer in " Every Fifteen Minutes" is a sociopath with a weakness for self-revelation ("I am a sociopath" is the novel's opening sentence), and the hero is a psychiatrist. "I treat depressed people, anxious people, people in deep grief," her protagonist declares."It's not 'Silence of the Lambs.' " Well, no. Think of Thomas Harris's " Red Dragon" and " Silence of the Lambs." Lisa Scottoline is not, of course, Thomas Harris, a fact that she playfully acknowledges in her latest novel. Modern crime novelists in particular tend to grant their villains rich if disfigured inner lives that are typically revealed in disquieting monologues. Ever since Oedipus insisted on getting to the bottom of things - and look how that turned out - murder mysteries have revolved around the conundrum of identity and self-knowledge.
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