Review: Strange Medicine by S.C. Wynne

Title: Strange Medicine

Series: Dr. Maxwell Thornton Murder Mysteries: Book One

Author: S.C. Wynne

Publisher: Self-Published

Length: 212 Pages

Category: Contemporary, Murder Mystery

At a Glance: S.C. Wynne’s mysteries are a skillful balance between the relationship and the criminal elements of the story. It’s always great to find a new fave, and I can’t wait for book two in the series to drop!

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: Maxwell Thornton isn’t really a people person, but that never mattered to him because he’d lived for his career. After losing a patient during a routine hysterectomy, he’s shaken and afraid to pick up the scalpel again. He resigns his position in the city and takes a job as sole GP in the isolated town of Rainy Dale, Texas, population 1001.

Rainy Dale is populated with eccentrics who test his patience and seem to think he’s not only there to treat their illnesses, but that he’s also there to hold their hand and be their therapist. When one of his most annoying patients ends up dead and floating in Maxwell’s pool, he has some explaining to do to the local sheriff.

Sheriff Royce Callum is intelligent, determined and more attracted to the new doctor than he would like. He can’t imagine Maxwell is a murderer, but he also can’t exactly ignore a corpse in the sexy doctor’s pool.

Review: Dr. Maxwell Thornton is a salty sort of fellow with a horrible bedside manner. He’s running away from his old life, hiding in plain sight in Rainy Dale, Texas, after losing a patient during what should have been a routine operation, and though he’s been exonerated of any wrong-doing, rightfully so, he’s having trouble reconciling with the outcome nonetheless. So, he has left Los Angeles and a once prestigious career behind to take on the role of General Practitioner in this sleepy little town where everyone knows everyone else’s business, and where he himself is now the current topic of all the gossip that’s fit to whisper. Maxwell doesn’t appreciate the way these strangers want to poke at the skeleton in his closet—which is a nice dichotomy considering he hails from a city that was built and thrives on gossip—but more than anything else, he just wants to be left alone.

Sheriff Royce Callum is the one man who makes Rainy Dale a whole lot more interesting for Maxwell, though he couldn’t be more the doctor’s opposite if he tried. Royce is the salt-of-the-earth country mouse to Maxwell’s city-slicker mouse, friendly and as apt to use teaching moments as to take punitive measures when it comes to minor infractions. He’s the lawman with a good heart, and his natural kindness goes a long way in the townspeople’s estimation of him. That kindness only goes so far, however, when a dead body shows up in Maxwell’s swimming pool, and all initial signs point to his guilt. I adored Royce from the moment he showed up on page, not only for his obvious intelligence but for his instincts and intuition as well, and I appreciated that Wynne didn’t use him as a simple caricature to contrast the differences between him and Maxwell.

One of the many things I like about S.C. Wynne’s mysteries is the skillful balance she achieves between the relationship and the criminal elements of a story. They pay great complement to one another, especially here when Royce must distance himself from the fragile connection he’s made with Maxwell to maintain a semblance of professional objectivity when it appears, for all intents and purposes, that the town’s newest resident might be a killer. Royce is measured and tenacious, and his getting to the bottom of the whodunit also allowed him to be plausibly imperfect in his inability to predict the killer’s motives and actions. While the criminal investigation imparts its share of friction between him and Maxwell, it’s also cleared up quickly enough to waylay unnecessary angst. I love the way he and Maxwell worked together, but I didn’t find myself swooning over them as much as thinking, yeah, they fit.

I also liked that Royce’s sexuality isn’t used as a story trope to paint Rainy Dale as a homophobic backwater. Apart from the murdery bits, it’s sort of an idyllic little place where, amongst its quirky inhabitants, some folks are behaving extra squirrely, and I liked the way the hints and clues were meted out in a way that allowed me to feel involved in the mystery rather than being a mere passive observer of it. Though Strange Medicine doesn’t fit the strict definition of a cozy mystery, there’s still a quaintness to the setting and a limited enough focus on its point-of-view characters that it all added a bit of coziness to the telling.

With a promising start to another murder mystery already established for Royce and Maxwell at the end of Strange Medicine, I can’t wait for book two in the series to drop. It’s always great to find a new fave.

You can buy Strange Medicine here:
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