A knockout that’s just what the doctor ordered for thriller enthusiasts.
In this novel, a medical resident is determined to go the distance to get the truth about a physician she suspects of consciously doing harm.
“What brings you to Titus McCall?” trauma surgeon Dr. Samuel Donovan asks new resident Liza Larkin. He does not suspect that it is he who brought her to the Massachusetts medical center. Months before, she spotted a stranger lurking in the background of photographs taken at the funeral of her father, who died of a heart attack. He popped up again in a previous photo taken when her father, who was near fatally shot at a political rally a few years ago, received an award for his legal service to Boston residents in need. When Larkin shows her institutionalized schizophrenic mother the photos to see if she recognizes the mystery man, she becomes extremely agitated. Descending into a Joan of Arc persona, she screams to Larkin: “He’ll burn me at the stake.” The resourceful Larkin is able to utilize online tools to identify him and at the deadline switches her residency preference from Massachusetts General in Boston to Titus McCall.Is Donovan a stalker or perhaps something more dangerous? Larkin herself has a schizoid personality. She has trouble in social situations and little desire to form relationships. It’s psychopath versus psychopath in a battle of wills and wits that Larkin compares to a boxing match (hence the witty, punning title). Physician-turned-author Rubin knows her way around a hospital and a literary thriller, setting up a bout that unfolds with scalpel-like precision, featuring seemingly mismatched opponents and escalating stakes (along with a high body count). The novel is not quite a whodunit; Donovan is clearly the perpetrator. It’s more of a whydunit; what drives him. Larkin is a sympathetic protagonist who struggles to control her anti-social personality disorder. Readers may wonder if a woman with this condition is the most reliable of narrators. But Larkin is exceedingly clever, setting in motion a “Rube Goldberg machine” that she hopes will lead to Donovan’s downfall.
A knockout that’s just what the doctor ordered for thriller enthusiasts.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-958160-00-8
Page Count: 290
Publisher: Indigo Dot Press
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
