Intriguing premise and spooky setting don’t make up for lackluster storytelling.
A young doctor’s surgical residency at New York’s iconic Bellevue Hospital mires him in murder, mystery, and mayhem.
Cook, the acclaimed founder of the medical-thriller genre, begins this standalone novel with a horrifying scene, set in 1949, in which a Bellevue doctor performs a lobotomy on an 8-year-old girl who is being treated for behavioral issues. The scene and the setting should be the perfect start to what could be a cringe-inducing horror story, but a weak, cliche-riddled narrative drags the novel down. Michael “Mitt” Fuller, a descendant of the doctor who performed the girl’s lobotomy, is excited to follow in the professional footsteps of four generations of Fullers who practiced medicine at Bellevue, but on day one of his residency, strange things begin to happen. Lights flicker, horrible odors come and go, surgical tools seem to have a mind of their own, patients die. Soon, he also learns that his ancestors were on the wrong side of evolving medical standards, including the now rejected lobotomy procedure, the use of anesthesia, and surgical theater antiseptics. He also sees dead people. This should be a page turner, but stilted dialogue and one-dimensional characters who can’t stop using worn out expressions such as “Good Grief,” “My Gosh,” and “Whoa!” are way too distracting, as are the descriptions of medical equipment, procedures, and illnesses that require a textbook to understand. What is interesting is the history of the centuries-old Bellevue, its architecture, and its famous patients, including Sylvia Plath and Norman Mailer. The ending, which rolls out in another perfect setting—the basement of an abandoned building—is spot on, but getting to it means slogging through page after page of dull writing.
Intriguing premise and spooky setting don’t make up for lackluster storytelling.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780593718834
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.
A series of mounting complications leads to yet another fight to the death between the discarded intelligence agents of Slough House and the morally bankrupt head of MI5.
As Jackson Lamb’s motley crew on Aldersgate Street struggles to cope with the deaths of River Cartwright’s grandfather and mentor, intelligence veteran David Cartwright, and their dim, beloved colleague Min Harper, new troubles are brewing. Diana Taverner, who runs the British Intelligence Service from Regent’s Park, is being blackmailed by former MP Peter Judd to do his bidding. Nothing untoward about that, of course, but this time, Judd’s demands, backed by a compromising tape recording, are more pressing than usual. So Diana reconvenes the Brains Trust—Al Hawke, Avril Potts, Daisy Wessex, and their ex-boss Charles Cornell Stamoran—whose last assignment was to serve as the contact for psychopathic IRA informant Dougie Malone while turning a blind eye to his multiple rapes and murders, which were really none of the Crown’s business. Taverner’s new assignment for the Brains Trust is the assassination of Judd. Since all these developments are filtered through the riotously cynical lens of Herron’s imagination, nothing goes as planned, and when the smoke clears, the fatalities don’t include Judd. Now that Judd knows he has as much reason to fear Taverner as she does to fear him, Lamb offers to broker a peace meeting between them which Slough House computer geek Roddy Ho will keep secret by knocking out 37 security cameras around Taverner’s dwelling. What could possibly go wrong?
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781641297264
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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.
