YOU MIGHT FEEL A LITTLE PRICK

Mysterious deaths and disappearances beset an Ohio hospital in Leder’s darkly humorous debut novel.

On Christmas Eve, a surgeon drops from a balcony at Cleveland Mercy Hospital. No one immediately reports anything; a blizzard covers the man’s body. But a missing person case becomes a homicide months later when melted snow exposes an apparent murder. But who would want to kill the surgeon? He’d just performed a spinal fusion on former baseball star Nick Glass. It was decidedly unpleasant for Nick, particularly since he doesn’t recall signing the form allowing a TV news crew to film the procedure. Around the same time, Nick’s fiancee, Julie Toffoli, an intern at Cleveland Mercy, loses her job over a grave error that was unmistakably her boss’s fault. Readers know that the couple has some link to the surgeon’s fatal plummet. This death furthermore ignites a series of startling events, from attempted blackmail to possible insurance fraud. Nearly retired Lt. Artemas Sikorski begins investigating a single homicide, which may soon spin off to other crimes and involve quite a few more deaths. Leder’s novel is a scathing look at the medical industry. For example, greed fuels many of the doctors’ choices and takes precedence over patients’ care. Still, the author delivers the story with comic panache; one indifferent physician begins a surgery, which he knows won’t have much effect, by saying to the nurse, “Sharp metal thing, please.” Numerous unsavory characters, some of whom wind up deceased, turn this humor bleak at times. The pace, however, is a whirlwind, and surprises abound. The ending, like the story overall, is a delightful surprise.

A funny, irreverent sendup of medical professionals.