My mother refuses to let me accompany her to the doctor. She always tries to find someone else in the family to take her to her appointments. I think she’s under the impression that I harbor hostilities toward the medical community. That isn’t exactly true. It all started about six years ago, when my mother had her first of three hip replacement surgeries. One day during the recovery period, I noticed something was wrong. I buzzed a nurse. When I didn’t receive the medical response as quickly as I wanted, I entered the hallway outside her room and yelled: "Something is wrong with my mother!" I happen to be very protective of my mother and if I don’t like the way things are going, I get disturbed. I don’t think this makes me a bad person. Over the past couple of years, I’ve worked myself back into her good graces (I think). I’ve made it through two doctor visits with her and I’ve behaved. Still, before every appointment, she makes me repeat three times, "I will be nice and I will keep my mouth shut." Now the true test looms on the horizon, a knee replacement surgery. I’m practicing deep breathing. I’ve selected my mantra. I’m praying in advance for a calm and peaceful spirit. My heart will be filled with harmony, love, and understanding. "Love is all you need." A good book can help keep fears and hostilities at bay. Just escape into someone else’s life story and forget about your mother. It’s very therapeutic. I might be reading the new book by Karen Robards, "Bait." A business trip takes attorney Maddie Fitzgerald to New Orleans. But it’s hardly business as usual when a man breaks into her hotel room and tries to kill her. Barely escaping with her life, the stylish 32-year-old brunette calls the police and meets with FBI agent Sam McCabe. Unnerved by his questions — and his good looks, Maddie is told she's been targeted by a hired killer, one who has eluded McCabe for years. Apparently, she's been mistaken for another woman, an FBI informant of the same name who was also staying at the hotel. McCabe grills her, and then disappears. Shaken, Maddie finishes her business and returns home to St. Louis. Days later, she is attacked a second time, and again McCabe returns to question her. He convinces her that the only way she'll ever be safe again is if the killer is caught, and the quickest way to nab him is to use her as bait. Maddie reluctantly agrees. Sparks fly and then ignite as McCabe shadows her. But their unexpected romance throws McCabe off his stride — and puts Maddie in the hands of a killer. Also new on the fiction shelf this week is "Skinny Dip," by Carl Hiaason. Chaz Perrone might be the only marine scientist in the world who doesn’t know which way the Gulf Stream runs. He might also be the only one who studied biology just to make a killing, and now he’s found a way; doctoring water samples so that a ruthless agribusiness tycoon can continue illegally dumping fertilizer into the endangered Everglades. When Chaz suspects that his wife, Joey, has figured out his scam, he pushes her overboard from a cruise liner into the night-dark Atlantic. Unfortunately for Chaz, his wife doesn’t die in the fall. Joey Perrone is plucked from the ocean by former cop, Mick Stranahan. Instead of rushing to the police and reporting her husband’s crime, Joey decides to stay dead and (with Mick’s help) get even with Chaz. As Joey haunts and taunts her homicidal husband, as Chaz’s cold-blooded cohorts in pollution grow uneasy about his ineptitude, as Mick Stranahan discovers that six failed marriages and years of island solitude haven’t killed the reckless romantic in him, we’re taken on a hilarious, full-throttle, ride through the warped politics and mayhem of the human environment, and the human heart.