Another tightly wound medical thriller featuring an intrepid surgeon/detective.
A damaging accusation throws a Houston doctor’s life and livelihood into a tailspin in Bishop’s latest series installment.
A year after solving the case of a child’s mysterious death in Act of Murder (2020), orthopedic surgeon and amateur sleuth Jim Bob “Doc” Brady is back to deflect a personal attack on his professional reputation. Due to a malpractice lawsuit, the typically strong and resilient Brady is dealing with stress that not even his wife, Mary Louise, or his adoring pets can soothe. During a deposition with vicious lawyers, Doc must defend against claims that he acted poorly and recklessly while providing care for Billy Jones, who developed a serious infection and endured a subsequent amputation after knee-replacement surgery. It turns out that the plaintiff’s team includes the “king-dog-daddy of Houston medical malpractice plaintiffs’ attorneys,” as Doc calls him: Donovan Shaw, who tells Doc that he’ll “destroy you and that pretty wife of yours,” if that’s what it takes to win. Doc’s own investigation reveals Donovan to have had some shady dealings with other lawyers. When another doctor dies under suspicious circumstances and someone mugs Doc in broad daylight, the surgeon knows he needs to step up his sleuthing before he and his family end up dead themselves. Although Doc is represented by defense attorney and friend Pete Huntley, the doctor is determined to dig deeper into Donovan, his sketchy firm, and its history of questionable cases on his own, and readers will find his investigation compelling. The book also offers intriguing reflections on America’s flawed medical system, spotlighting amoral “testifying doctors” and patients “looking for a quick ‘medical lottery win’ ” through bogus malpractice claims. Houston-based orthopedic surgeon Bishop stays true to his narrative style in this installment, providing readers with authentic-sounding dialogue and an engaging plot. Along the way, he adds vibrancy to his characterization of Mary Louise so readers can more easily experience the longtime married couple’s bond. However, it’s the breathless concluding courtroom scene that truly steals the show.
Another tightly wound medical thriller featuring an intrepid surgeon/detective.Pub Date: June 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73425-112-8
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Mantid Press
Review Posted Online: July 8, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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