Every Fifteen Minutes

This stand-alone thriller from Lisa Scottoline features psychologist Dr. Eric Parrish who runs the psychiatric unit at the general hospital. Dr. Parish also sees a few private clients at his home office. He has recently separated from his wife and is surprised to find she has sold their house, even though their verbal agreement was that she would live there with their daughter, Hannah, to minimize the trauma of the divorce. He also finds out that his wife is pushing Hannah to participate in sports, which she abhors, and that his ex-wife has a new boyfriend who seems to be living at their house. He decides to file for primary custody of their daughter.
Meanwhile, on a referral from a friend and colleague in the ER, he starts seeing a very troubled teen, Max, a math whiz, whose primary caretaker, his grandmother, is imminently terminal. Eric learns that Max has an obsessive crush on a girl and has actually kept a cell phone she left behind at a math tutoring session. As Eric debates whether or not to warm the girl, she is murdered and Eric initially becomes the prime suspect. Then attention quickly shifts to Max and Scottoline leads the reader on with lots of other information that suggest Max is the killer. Eric is unconvinced and wants to support Max. Meanwhile, however, he is dealing with professional issues as a woman intern on the psych unit has filed sexual harassment charges, the wife of a patient is filing suit with the hospital for what she considers to be the mistreatment of her husband as a patient on the psych ward,  and a fire starts on the unit.
Little does Eric realize that he is actually the target of a sociopath's intention to destroy him personally and professionally. There are no clues as to who hates Eric this intently and he eventually finds that his allies may be his worst enemies.
I have read a lot of Scottoline's other books, both her individual novels and her "Rosato and Associates" series about a women-owned law firm, and she never disappoints. She is a fine writer. However, I was a little annoyed that the reader was so clearly being led to believe Max was the killer; it seemed a bit overdone to me. Minor gripe, however.