An entertaining, if sometimes-troubling, look at the chaotic reality of a modern health care system.
In this debut novel, a steely CEO sets out to close a struggling hospital, but things don’t go as planned.
When Stella Savage starts her new post as the chief executive of London’s Royal Infirmary, she has one goal in mind: “secretly ensuring the demise of the hospital.” That’s easier said than done, it turns out, as she discovers that the institution’s motley crew of doctors and nurses isn’t going to be as easy to control as she anticipated. On top of that, an anonymous whistleblower claims that he has evidence of incorrect diagnoses—and he’s sending body parts of deceased patients to family members that seem to prove it. Things go from bad to worse when a mysterious gastrointestinal ailment breaks out among the hospital’s patients and staff. Is it evidence of the staff’s incompetence or a deliberate act of poisoning? McIntosh, himself a physician, isn’t afraid to show the dark underbelly of the medical field. The doctors at the Royal Infirmary and its sister hospital, St. Andrews, are a mixed bag—some nobly committed to helping patients, others vain and venal, and almost all with personal lives worthy of a soap opera. Consulting physician William Judd, for instance, is one of the noble ones, which initially puts him at odds with Savage’s cost-cutting ways. But as crises pile up, each character realizes that they must work together for the good of everyone. McIntosh lays the drama on a bit too thick at times, and a few twists strain credulity, particularly a bumbling act of vengeance that leads to a key plot point. Aside from Savage, the book’s villains are so broadly and cartoonishly drawn they’re difficult to take seriously. Far more compelling is Judd, a well-intentioned doctor struggling to deal with situations beyond his control, who serves as the novel’s moral center. American readers may also be a bit baffled by unfamiliar hospital terms and details about the United Kingdom’s National Health Service. However, the general messages about managing bureaucracy and providing adequate patient care are universal.
An entertaining, if sometimes-troubling, look at the chaotic reality of a modern health care system.Pub Date: June 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9955970-3-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Point Break Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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