Published by The Borough Press
Publication Date: 1st September 2022
Genre: Medical Thriller
My thanks to Sofia Saghir of Midas PR for the invitation to read Simon Stephenson's book as part of the blog tour. My opinions here are honest and unbiased.
Book Description:
The year is 1999. Returning to practice after a suspension for stealing opioids, a young Scottish doctor takes the only job he can find: a post as a senior house officer in the struggling East London hospital of St Luke's.
Amid the maelstrom of sick patients, over-worked staff and underfunded wards a darker secret soon declares itself: too many patients are dying.
Could one of the hospital's medical professionals be behind the unexplained deaths?
My first instinct on receiving Sofia's invitation to read this book was that it would be a perfect fit of a read for me, as a member of staff in the NHS as my day job so I was keen to sign up. On starting the book it is clear straightaway that the author has a passion for the medical profession but is honest enough to portray the NHS with a "warts and all" approach, describing St Luke's as so many inner-city hospitals are: short-staffed, under-funded and run by a team of individuals who will go the extra mile to ensure their patients are given the best possible treatment.
My knowledge of the heirarchy of doctors' grades helped me immensely in my understanding of the staff who feature in this book. House Officers, Senior House Officers, Registrars, Consultants: my one criticism of the book is that unless you are familiar with the order of seniority the reader could become a little lost in the who's who of the staff but it quickly becomes obvious as to who is doing the bulk of the work on the wards and in the A&E department. The buck might stop with the Consultant but it's most certainly the junior staff who are keeping the place running on a day-to-day basis; the workload is relentless and the pressure incredible. And it's that pace and pressure which hides the truth of events at St Luke's: there are unexplained deaths going unnoticed at the hospital and someone is abusing their position. That is until they pick the wrong victim and questions start being asked.
Our narrator is quickly swept into the sights of the investigating detectives - but with his history of opioid theft and the shadow that has left hanging over him he's an obvious target for their suspicions. As a regular reader of crime thrillers this all seemed far too clear-cut a motive - but as the author points out there's always the theory of Occam's razor: the most obvious explanation for something often proves to be the answer. With the distracting presence on the ward of drug addict and teen icon Felix Smollett adding to the pressures, our medical team certainly has their hands full.
An interesting aside to the main thread of the story is the inclusion of real-life medical serial killer stories between the chapters. With examples varying from recent times such as Harold Shipman to older accounts from historical records from across the globe the cases are many and varied - and surprisingly more prevalent than many of us realise. Whether these inclusions could be considered a distraction from the main storyline will be something of personal choice by the individual reader. They do provide a handy smoke screen to assist in diverting the mind of the reader.
Simon Stephenson originally trained as a doctor and worked in London and Scotland. He previously wrote Let Not the Waves of the Sea, a memoir about the loss of his brother in the Indian ocean tsunami. It won Best First Book at the Scottish Book Awards, was a Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4, and a Daily Telegraph Book of the Year.
His first novel, Set My Heart to Five, has been optioned by Working Title Films. He currently lives in Los Angeles, where he works as a screenwriter. He originated and wrote the film The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, and wrote on Pixar’s Luca.
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