BAGGED

A clever premise--hiding a body in a hospital morgue--quickly dissipates into murder-by-formula in this first-of-a-series featuring General Jack, a big-city hospital. The corpse is eventually recognized as a much-disliked staff surgeon, who recently refused to pull the plug on a terminally ill patient. Did the disgruntled family do it? Or perhaps another surgeon, with an itchy plug finger and a desire to supplant his superior? Maybe a lovelorn nurse? Security supervisor Jan Gallagher, who reclaimed her job after suing General Jack for sexual discrimination and winning wends her way through hostile medical boards, recalcitrant staff, and her own self-doubts to discover who infiltrated the hospital, and why. Repetitive, and if an EKG were as flat as this author's style, there'd be no question but that the patient was absolutely dead.