THE VERY BEST OF CARE

Hatch’s debut medical thriller chronicles a woman’s nightmarish ordeal after inexplicably giving birth to her son nearly four months early.

After trying to conceive for years, Sophie and Adam Young’s last attempt at IVF proves successful. But after abdominal pain during her lunch break forces her to check into a midtown Manhattan hospital as a precaution, she finds herself drugged and in labor 14 weeks ahead of schedule—she soon gives birth to a baby boy who barely weighs two pounds. Essentially living in the neonatal intensive care unit with her son as he desperately clings to life, Sophie begins seeing the always crowded and chaotic NICU, its doctors, and the healthcare industry in general in a new—and decidedly darker—light. One doctor in particular—Mitch Wagner, the obstetrician who delivered her baby—is connected to an alarming number of expectant mothers who have given birth prematurely. Sophie and her husband begin investigating, only to become entangled in a grand-scale conspiracy that puts all of their lives, including that of their vulnerable son, in danger. The author’s intimate familiarity with the daily trials and tribulations of working in the medical field (Hatch is a longtime pediatric nurse practitioner) gives this narrative its punch. Sophie witnesses an emergency C-section in which the baby is saved but the mother dies: “Sophie couldn’t pull her eyes away from the drama. [The woman’s] bra and underpants had been cut off and thrown on the floor. IV bags and tubing, medication vials, countless surgical pads, and bloody sheets and towels were strewn everywhere.” The emotional intensity throughout is off the charts (“…don’t mess with a mother and her baby”), and the commentary razor-sharp (“People complain about how expensive health care is. This is why. Big Pharma is buying our business, and it’s all wrong”). Hatch’s yarn is very much comparable to Robin Cook’s breakthrough novel Coma (1977); fans of medical thrillers will not soon forget this story.

Unapologetically graphic, deeply disturbing, and all too believable.