Brian Stidham was hired by Brad Schwartz to be another doctor is Schwartz’s ever growing practice. Although a successful doctor, Schwartz was plagued with troubles, eventually leading him to become an addict. While in rehab, Stidham leaves Schwartz’s practice to start one of his own, igniting a fury in Schwartz which eventually leads to Stidham’s murder.

The Goodreads synopsis of this book is a little misleading. The hook of the synopsis: “Lourdes, who had witnessed Schwartz’s toxic rage toward his former partner, feared she knew. But would her suspicions be enough to catch the killer? Find out in TOXIC RAGE,” makes it sound like Lourdes is the focus of the book and we follow her story as she tries to uncover the killer. This isn’t what happens at all. Lourdes is actually a very small part of the story. And actually, it was pretty obvious that Schwartz was the killer from the beginning.

While I liked this book, I felt that there was a lot of repetition. For example, Schwartz went around telling anyone he spoke to that he wanted Stidham dead. He even asked several people if they could kill him, or if not, knew anyone that could. We heard from each of these people. This got a little mundane and at points I found it hard to get through. It would have been more powerful if we had heard the details about one or two of the most shocking stories, and then the author could have lumped the rest into a brief paragraph or two.

Despite the above, I did find the book to be very interesting. Even though the book makes it very obvious from the beginning that Schwartz was the killer, the book still explores the other possibilities the police looked into. I thought it was good that the author wrote what actually happened rather than have an opinion as to what happened. The book seemed well researched and included information about interviews and court proceedings.

While I would recommend this book, it wasn’t my favorite true crime story.

This is one amazingly authentic true crime novel where the authors research is impeccable. I found it hard to put down and the way it was written allows the reader a chance to understand what happened. This is one 5+++ star novel that after reading I had to learn more about.

Thank you to netgalley as well as the author./publisher for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

True crime is my guilty pleasure – has been for decades, and it seems the world is catching up, thanks maybe to podcasts and TV shows (ranging from sleazy and cheesy to straightforward factual documentaries). Wild Blue Press has published some interesting TC, so I was pleased to receive a copy of A. J. Flick’s Toxic Rage from WBP (and NetGalley) in exchange for my honest review.

This book tells a story would be perfectly told by Patrick Hinds and Gillian Pensavalle of the podcast True Crime Obsessed. It has it all: sex, violence, marital infidelity, drug addiction, and money. All surrounding what seems at first like just a sad story about a couple of ophthalmologists in Tucson, Arizona. One of them, Dr. Brad Schwartz, has a busy practice, and wants to expand the business. He invites Dr. Brian Stidham to explore a move from Texas to Tucson to take over the pediatric patients, thereby freeing him up to work on expanding the business. Brian visits Tucson, likes how things look and moves west. One thing he couldn’t have discerned from his initial visit is Brad’s drug problem, which is serious enough for him to be the target of a DEA investigation. This makes it necessary for Brian and the office staff to pick up the slack caused by Brad’s absence, which they don’t mind at first as they think it’s an ongoing health problem (which it is, but not like they think!)

Finally, Brian has had enough and decides to open his own practice. He plans the move and hires a few of the staff who are uncertain about the stability of Brad’s practice, and when Brad’s parents get wind of this, they rat out Brian and Brad loses it. Brad tells his mother to fire Brian, which means the office now has no doctor.
Brad’s wife files for divorce and his practice finally closes. He can’t practice or write prescriptions, is officially sanctioned by the Medical Board and has to basically start over, while Brian’s new practice is going great.

Brad’s dealing with divorce costs, alimony, lost income, the cost for the rehab he is required to do, etc., all of which set him back hundreds of thousands of dollars. Brad thought Brian was taking care of his practice for him while he was “away” (drug rehab), but he thinks that instead Brian raided the office and staff, taking whoever and whatever he wanted.

A few months later, after Brad has told apparently everyone that he wanted Brian dead, even telling his girlfriend Lourdes he wanted to hire a hit man to murder Brian, guess who ends up dead in the parking lot of his new office. Brad swears he had nothing to do with it, but maybe partly because he is such a jerk, lots of people are cooperative with the investigation into the murder.

Brad’s truly quite an unlikeable character: he tells a child’s parents that their kid needs surgery by saying “There are only two who can save your child: God and me…and God’s busy.” His primary girlfriend Lourdes is a prosecutor, and she kind of freaked out after Brad had told her numerous times he wanted to hire a hit man to take out Brian, and then Brian ends up murdered.

So there it is. It’s a fascinating story, and Flick tells it well. Four stars, sure to be enjoyed those whose preferred subgenre of true crime is what I call “domestic true crime. “

Toxic Rage is a book for all true crime fans. The book is gripping and has good character development, which I find necessary in order to follow the crime and the aftermath. Some interesting questions are posed by the author about the verdict. Toxic Rage provides insight into a crime and goes beyond just reporting facts. This is a book you will want to read again.

This was a interesting and fascinating book. It was a bit long during the trial trying to keep up with all the characters but was worth sticking with to the end.

A fascinating look into the destruction that betrayal ignites, and lengths the betrayed will go to in order to wreak revenge. This book has plenty of twists and turns to capture the imagination of even the most jaded reader. Highly recommended!

As a native Tucsonan i have heard of this crime happening, as i know of some people working in the same field, but did not know much of the details until reading this book.

It was a great read from start to finish, there were some parts where the same thing was mentioned over and over again on how much he wanted the doctor dead. Besides that it was refreshing getting an indight into the time leading up to the trial. Great use of information and research.

love this book, characters were well developed. The plot had many twist and turns. Great read., cannot wait for the next book..

You can find this review and all my others over at www.readbookrepeat.wordpress.com

Actual rating of a strong 3.5.

Toxic Rage follows the true crime of a murder in Tucson in 2004. The man murdered, Brian Stidham, was a well loved and respected doctor. This book follows the lives of the people involved, leading up to, during, and after the murder has been committed. It gives insight into what was going on in the people's lives when this event occurred, using reports and interviews to give more depth.

I really enjoyed this book, I've only read a few other true crime novels, and I find it different to reading fiction crime novel, probably because this actually happened. The people I am reading about are real, and so is their pain. I loved the insight given and how all the different people involved, especially all the women who were involved with Brad Schwartz, the one of the men sentenced for the crime.

Reading through this account, I couldn't help but realise very early on how unhinged Brad Schwartz was. His womanising aside, which is a pretty dick move in itself, I was more surprised at how quickly he would tell someone he doesn't know how much he hated Brian, and go into the whole sordid tale of what happened between them. And not only that, he openly admitted to all of these women that he wanted Brian dead, asking a few of them whether they had connections to hit men or gang members who could carry out the deed for him. No well adjusted person openly discloses this information to people he doesn't really know, and to that MANY people as well.

Another thing that shocked me a bit, was that all of these women brushed it off as the angry rantings of a sane man who wouldn't follow through. They all had bad feelings about what was being said about Brian, and wondered, even if just for a second, whether or not Brad would actually carry out his threats, yet NONE of them thought it wise to at least let the authorities know? Even just to say "Hey, so this guy I'm seeing made some remarks that made me uncomfortable, I'm not sure that he'll actually carry them out, but I just felt I should let someone know in case." this floored me. I mean, I understand that they all thought they were the only woman he was seeing, and they all believed that they were the sole person he had professed these nefarious thoughts to, but still, if someone is that angry and says something like that to me, repeatedly I might add, I'd be inclined to go give the cops a heads up. Just in case.

And Brad being so adamant that he wasn't behind the death? I'm honestly not sure whether I believe him, there is a small portion of doubt that maybe he didn't organise this at all, but from all the evidence presented, that sliver of doubt is very tiny. Could he be that mentally unstable that he carried out his threat but honestly believes he had nothing to do with it? Did he have a psychiatric evaluation done? He just seems so unhinged, and to this day still professes innocence.

There was one thing that irked me a teeny bit which with this, I found a couple of the conversations, one of them being between the detectives and Mrs. Stidham on the night of Brian's death. The dialogue was so jilted and hard to follow at times, I'm sure that Flick has taken the dialogue from the reports and interviews, but I just felt that maybe they should have been edited a bit, so while still saying the same thing, just less pauses and switching mid sentence? If that makes sense? I almost felt like the detective interviewing Mrs. Stidham was a teenager not sure of his job. I did pick up a couple more sentences with missing words, or misspelled words, but nothing a last sweep editing wouldn't fix.

All in all, this was an interesting case. I'm still left with questions about it, but I doubt we'll ever get the whole truth.

This is the story of a tragic murder that occurred in Tuscon in 2004. Because the murder occurred so long ago, most people reading the book will know that both the victim and his assailant were health professionals.

Flick does a good job of explaining how they came to work together and how one of the characters had problems with drugs and infidelity whereas the other was a young married man and the father of young children.

The book may have been even better if the story was more current and if pictures were included in the Kindle edition I received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I was able to find pictures of the subjects online. Readers who enjoy True Crime novels are likely to quickly become engaged in this story.

I had never heard of this case prior to reading this book. Dr. Schwartz seems to be a man led by his vices and bound to take revenge on Dr. Stidham, blaming him for the loss of his medical practice and prestige. He spoke to several people and solicited them to kill Dr. Stidham, so when he ends up dead the natural suspect is Dr. Schwartz. Intriguing story of how this man let hatred ruin his life. It is at times cinfusing, their names are similar. It is an interesting cast of characters. All of these people to whom he openly threatened Dr. Stidham’s life, none of them contacted the police.. interesting study in people’s morality. Reading this book is not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

Toxic Rage: A Tale Of Murder In Tucson

This is a tale of two very good eye doctors in Tucson, Arizona. One is already established there, Dr. Brad Schwartz has a busy practice and wants to branch out in other areas. So he invites Dr. Brian Stidham to move from Texas to Tucson to take over the pediatric part of the practice to free Brad up go in other directions. After Stidham visits and looks things over, he’s on board and moves his family. Things are going fairly well when past drug issues come back to haunt Brad and it derails his life. Even though he’s cleaned up his act, the DEA is on his trail and is taking action over past misdeeds. He takes time away from the practice to deal with the problems, leaving things in Dr. Stidham’s hands along with the staff. Brad is giving them the impression that it has to do with his ongoing health problems.

Dr. Stidham decides to open a practice of his own after some time of not being kept in the loop, and knowing only that the DEA had been searching the office. He rents office space and equipment and hires someone to set up the practice. He offers jobs to a few of the staff who are uncertain about their futures and have seen his business cards for his new practice at the office and asked him about it. Brad’s parents are checking in on the practice daily to keep an eye on things, and it gets back to Brad out of town that Dr. Stidham is opening a practice of his own. Brad becomes outraged, completely furious and has his mother dismiss Dr. Stidham when he learns what is going on. This leaves the practice completely without a doctor, and patients are having to go to the hospital to be seen for care. Brad is so angry at what Dr. Stidham has done behind his back while he’s in rehab, stealing his staff and patients he feels, at the time he needed him most. He feels completely betrayed and as if his life is unraveling.

While Schwartz finishes his requirements and awaits the findings of the Medical Board, his wife begins a divorce against him and his practice is closed. He is unable to practice or write prescriptions for strong drugs until further notice. He is sanctioned and told what he has to do to be able to start over again in time. He’s fine with all that, but still, he seethes at Brian Stidham whose new practice is already up and running, with some of Brad’s patients and staff.

Brad's current girlfriend tries explaining to him that if he were in Brian’s shoes with a family to feed, having just moved to Arizona from Texas, he’d be doing the exact same thing. But Brad doesn’t want to hear it, all he can think about is what it’s cost him. All the money in divorce costs, alimony, lost income, all the money it’s costing him to pay for the rehab he has to do, and the counseling they are requiring, hundreds of thousands of dollars. And he blames Stidham because instead of taking care of his practice for him while he was away like he’d expected, he dismantled it and took what he wanted from it for himself. He just hated the man, and wouldn’t mind if something awful happened to him.

Then Dr. Stidham ends up dead at his new practice months later. Brad swears he had nothing to do with it, despite having told several women he dated that he wanted him dead. It’s looking rather fishy. He has so obsessed over it that his longterm girlfriend broke up with him. Everyone’s watching to see how this comes out now.  My thanks for the advance electronic copy that was provided by NetGalley, author A.J. Flick, and the publisher for my fair review.

Author-- 
A.J. Flick is a writer, editor and repurposed journalist based in Tucson, Ariz. Her byline has appeared in numerous news websites and publications across the country. When she isn't writing, she loves endurance hikes and wilderness explorations. Just kidding. She would rather read and watch a lot of TV and movies.

WildBlue Press  303 pages
Pub: Oct 9th, 2018

My BookZone blog:
https://wordpress.com/post/bookblog200.wordpress.com/926

I found this book a pretty standard true crime story. It is competently written, telling the story of the murder of a Tucson doctor by another doctor with whom he had previously had a professional partnership.

The story is well-written, and the author did a good job of fleshing out the characters of the numerous people who were involved in the lives of these two men both before and after the murder.

If you like the true crime genre, or are a fan of TV shows like Law and Order, I think you will enjoy this book.

I received an advanced reading copy from the publishers via NetGalley. Thanks!