A smart, suspenseful novel that masterfully intertwines medicine, mystery, and morality.
Edwards’ medical thriller combines hospital politics, cybercrime, and the chilling return of a serial killer.
In 2018, Jack Forester, a dedicated physician and medical school dean at New Canterbury University, is already struggling with the loss of his wife and the overwhelming responsibilities of running a hospital when his world is upended. A financial crisis threatens to bankrupt the medical center, and as Jack investigates, he uncovers shocking mismanagement and possible fraud. His pursuit of the truth puts him at odds with powerful figures, including a ruthless cybercriminal with a vested interest in the hospital’s collapse. At home, Jack is a single father to a young daughter, Julia, who’s beginning to ask difficult questions about her mother whom she barely remembers. Meanwhile, his teenage niece, Kaitlyn, arrives in his care under difficult circumstances, offering him a challenge and an unexpected source of strength. Just as Jack begins to untangle the web of deception surrounding the hospital, his past returns to haunt him. A notorious serial killer with whom Jack has history is back, and this time, he’s targeting those closest to him. Edwards, a physician, crafts an authentic medical setting, from the daily pressures of emergency medicine to the behind-the-scenes power struggles that shape hospital operations. His attention to detail, such as the protocols of hospital administration and the psychological burden of caregiving (“What would she remember of her childhood? He hoped it wouldn’t be of the hours she spent wondering when he would come home”), lends the story credibility and depth. Jack is a compelling protagonist—flawed yet determined, battling personal grief and forced into roles he never sought. Kaitlyn, a rebellious but intelligent teenager with a hidden talent for baseball, adds emotional weight to the story, and their evolving relationship is one of the book’s most rewarding aspects. Julia, though younger, serves as a constant reminder of the life that Jack’s trying to hold together, making the stakes more personal. The tension builds steadily as the various threats converge, leading to a climactic confrontation.
A smart, suspenseful novel that masterfully intertwines medicine, mystery, and morality.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9798888246177
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Koehler Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
