I backed into reading mysteries through my love of romance novels, which grew to include romantic suspense and then evolved into a curiosity about “straight” mysteries. These days I enjoy mysteries and thrillers quite a bit, but I admit that I still appreciate a romantic angle and tend to prefer mysteries that include a romance along the way.

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed a growing proliferation of romantic triangles in the mystery novels I’ve read. Readers of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum and Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series will recognize the phenomenon I’m talking about in which the central female character has two important men in her life and is indecisive/inconclusive about what to do about them. In my experience, this formula works well in some novels and seems awkward or out-of-place in others. The latter is unfortunately the case in Deadly Remedy, an interesting and competent medical mystery/thriller that fails utterly in its attempted romantic triangle.

This novel is the third in a series of books about Dr. Rhea Rheaburn Lynch, an emergency room doctor in a rural South Carolina county hospital. It plays out like an episode of ER in a small Southern setting, complete with detailed snapshots of competent nurses; flighty, oversexed staffers; insufferable yet talented physicians; and other hardworking, dedicated physicians like Rhea herself.

The writing is powerfully atmospheric and descriptive of the deep South in the summertime. In some scenes you can practically feel the oppressive heat and humidity as Rhea goes for her daily run with her dogs. Thrown in for good (or bad) measure are a sampling of traditional southern character types as patients and supporting cast – the wise, old housekeeper who helped raise Rhea, the good-old-boy cops, the backwoods rednecks, and simple country folk managing as best they can. These stereotypes are handled inoffensively for the most part, as viewed in the first-person by Dr. Rhea-Rhea (as her young patients call her), and they are tempered by her affection, appreciation, or just simple acceptance.

Dr. Rhea herself is an interesting character, smart and sympathetic, and nearly always likable. She and her alcoholic mother – Rhea never knew her father – lived in poverty after her mother was cut off from her upper class family. The good doctor made her way in life very much on her own. She put herself through medical school, determined to make the disdainful blue-bloods regret their treatment of her family, and is driven by a need to prove her worth and by a geniune desire to help people. Most of her close friends are doctors and she’s a workaholic with little experience with men.

In Deadly Remedy, Rhea is the anchor in a plot with many twists and turns, in which she is connected by seeming coincidence to more than she knows. As a medical doctor trained in the belief of science to the exclusion of nearly all else, recent events and several new patients in her ER cause her to question her own skepticism about powers beyond science and the very existence of miracles.

A traveling faith healer has arrived in town, “healing” some of Rhea’s own incurable patients, while potentially creating a whole new group of patients. Nearly simultaneously, two “Jane Does” are rescued from a harrowing crash nearby. Their damaged bodies and minds tell the tale of severe abuse, but they can’t communicate beyond strange chanting, symbols and a frightening, voodoo-like doll in their possession. Rhea’s sort-of boyfriend, police captain Mark Stafford, also tells her that bodies are being found with parts of the bodies missing. Rhea struggles to determine if dark magic forces are at work or if these events can be explained by science and the vagaries of the human condition.

Mark’s character is not drawn in much depth. We know he’s quite interested in Rhea but is willing to wait for her go-ahead as far as the relationship goes. We know he’s a dedicated rural police captain with a black sense of humor and an appreciation of Rhea’s difficult and important work. But there’s not much characterization beyond those superficial impressions and a few scenes where he tends to our sensible but bad-at-taking-care-of-herself heroine.

As a romance, I found the relationship between Rhea and Mark dissatisfying, since they spend little time together and when they are together they play games and don’t really communicate. Their interaction seems to follow their established relationship arc in the larger series, but the slowly developing pace of their romance and their mutual reticence was frustrating. Okay, they’re both very busy and Rhea is cautious since she’s not sure what her feelings are for Mark or what direction she wants to take them, but maybe they could at least kiss if they’ve supposedly been dating for nearly a year?! They do, but not until nearly the very end of the book.

The sub-plot involving one of Rhea’s best friends – Dr. Cam Reston, the third of the supposed romantic triangle – never rang true. Certain scenes designed to increase will-they-or-won’t-they tension between Rhea and Cam didn’t reach their goal because I didn’t believe Rhea would take the steps those scenes implied. Far more satisfactory would have been the elimination of some of Rhea and Cam’s scenes to make room for further interaction between Rhea and Mark; their budding relationship is far more interesting and believable. It’s unfortunate that Ms. Fleming chose to dilute its impact with another relationship. Likewise, the scenes between Cam’s ex-lover and Rhea seemed out of place and unnecessary – I’m sure they were put in to further the brewing Cam-Rhea drama, but they didn’t work at all for me.

Despite the failings of Deadly Remedy in the romance arena, the book does succeed better as a medical mystery. The resolution of the many plot threads holds together well, though the ending itself seemed anti-climactic. If you’re in the mood for a decent medical mystery, or if you have been following Dr. Rhea from the beginning of the series, then you may enjoy Deadly Remedy more than I did.