SAVAGE PLACE
By
Mike Constant comes back to his home town at the request of its leading citizen, Zeagler (hypertension) whose daughter Anna (an alcoholic) is married to Paul Van Ryn (a psychotic), an artist and the pampered son of the ""Duchess"" Van Ryn (arteriosclerosis). Then there's Jason West, an actor (he has a bad ticker) who loves Anna, while his sister Sandra, a nurse, is in love with Paul- although Mike has also always loved her. With all this, Constant has a practically readymade practice: Sandra takes a nearly fatal fall from a cliff; there's an emergency splenectomy on Anna; a pacemaker heart operation for Jason; along with the gratuitous surgery performed by another doctor and a hepatitis epidemic...Just what this doctor has ordered successfully for a good many years---some medical ethics (here the fur or operativus gets a drubbing), some table procedures, and some romantic ligatures.