The Patient (2022) by Tim Sullivan

 The Patient is the third book in Tim Sullivan's DS Cross series, and it's the one in which Sullivan seems to really hit his stride as regards Cross and his relationship to the other recurring series characters. This is a series best read in publication order, and by the time readers begin The Patient they are fully acquainted with where Cross falls along the spectrum and how his autism affects his perception of the world around him. This allows Sullivan to spend more time exploring Cross's relationship with co-workers, friends, and family more deeply than he has done in previous Cross novels. That he does all of this while presenting an intriguing, complicated mystery to be solved is the icing on the cake. 

When Cross notices a woman sitting in Police Reception over a number of days, his curiosity is aroused enough for him to hear her out even when others in the Bristol police department have come to see the woman as just a nuisance who will never take no for an answer. The woman insists that her daughter was murdered; the police insist that she either committed suicide or died of an accidental overdose. 

Cross initially agrees with the other cops, but three things nag at him so much that he begins to wonder whether or not the woman might just be correct about her daughter's death:

• The young woman died without making any arrangements for the care of her toddler daughter who was alone in the next room.
• She died from an overdose of medical morphine (which is extremely unlikely for an addict to get hold of), not the kind of heroin found on the streets.
• Lab tests confirm that she had been drug-free for at least eighteen months prior to her death.

Cross, against the wishes of his boss and the detective who had earlier closed the case, decides to open a new investigation of his own - and begins his methodical investigation of Flick's death from square one. What follows is a first-rate, blow-by-blow police procedural during which Cross and his team eliminate one suspect after another until the murderer is finally identified.

What makes The Patient special, however, is watching Cross become the caretaker of his father, the man who had devoted so much of his own life to helping Cross make his way in a world that seems so strange and off-putting to him. For perhaps the first time in his life, Cross needs the help of others if he is to cope with all of his responsibilities, and he begins to learn the meaning of friendship and what it is like to have an actual friend or two in his life. 

The Patient is the book in which DS Cross develops into a fully-rounded character, one who has to cope with the problems of an aging father at the same time his job demands are as great as they have ever been. Much is revealed about the detective's childhood and how his mother's disappearance when he was five years old has impacted him to the present day. Sullivan manages to keep The Patient from being an overly melancholy book by developing the relationships between Cross and the two female cops who support his work. Ottey and Mackenzie, by now see Cross as much more than the best detective in the Bristol Police Department. They have come to respect him more than ever, yes, but they like him for who he is. Ottey, especially, has become Cross's mentor, someone he can look to for social tips and tricks that will allow him to function better in the world outside his office. 

The DS Cross series has become a favorite of mine now, and I'm thankful that there are already five other Cross books to be enjoyed - I hope that they keep coming for a long time.