Neşter Müziği

Hank Madden #1

by David Carnoy, Samim Sakacı (Translator)

Kristen Kroiter. Lise öğrencisi. Altı ay kadar önce, bir trafik kazasında ağır yaralanmış ve acil serviste hayata geri dönmüştü. Ancak kimsenin beklemediği bir anda, intihar etti.

Dr. Ted Cogan. Kırk üç yaşında, acil serviste çalışan uzman hekim. Başarılı, bekâr; itiraf ettiği gibi, bir "kadın avcısı"... Kristen Kroiter'e ilk müdahaleyi yaparak hayatını kurtarmıştı; şimdi onu intihara sürüklemekle suçlanıyor. Tüm suçlamaları reddediyor.
Dedektif Madden. Soruşturmayı yürüten, NY Polis Departmanı'ndaki en tecrübeli polislerinden. Görgü tanıklarının yanı sıra, elinde Dr. Cogan aleyhine çok kuvvetli bir delil var: Kristen Kroiter'in ardında bıraktığı günlüğü... Son sayfasında, Doktor'un onunla zorla cinsel ilişki kurduğu yazıyor.
Kristen Kroiter on altı yaşında ve bakireydi...
Neşter Müziği... Doktor ve hastası, suçlayan ve suçlanan, av ve avcı gibi ikililerin birbirleriyle amansız bir mücadele verdikleri, soğuk hastane koridorlarından çığırından çıkmış gençlik partilerine uzanan, nefes kesici temposu ve şok edici sonuyla akıllara durgunluk veren bir gerilim romanı...

"Gerilim dolu bir kedi-fare oyunu; hem de en esaslısından. Sinematografik, inandırıcı... Son sayfasına kadar başımı kaldıramadım."
R.J. Ellory
"Carnoy'un romanı sürükleyici, gerilim dolu, bütünüyle inandırıcı ve inanılmayacak kadar iyi."

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Mystery Thriller, Ebooks, Audiobook

384 pages, Paperback

First published September 19, 2008

Reviews

[Daleen Berry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Knife Music is authentic, well-written, and suspenseful

As a former crime reporter, Knife Music seems like it could have been culled from any of the police blotters I've seen in many precincts. As a nonfiction author myself, it rings more truthful than most fiction I've read. No doubt that's because first-time Author David Carnoy evidently conducted thorough research to achieve this authenticity.

I'm not sure what kind of music surgeons listen to while they operate on a patient, but I hope it's a soothing, melodic adagio or canon, rather like Pachelbel's Canon in D--one of my very favorite pieces.

Carnoy's suspenseful novel is definitely not an adagio. More like an opera, interspersed with mini intermezzos. That's not to say it isn't good--it is. Quite good, in fact, and Carnoy's writing is measured, with adequate attention given to pitch, tone and tempo.

His main character, Ted Cogan, is a surgeon who first operates on a teenage girl, and then--following her suicide--is accused of being her rapist. Like any well-composed piece of music, "Knife Music" does all it should to hold the reader's attention: it introduces passages, it orchestrates the scenes and it evokes emotion.

Sometimes the emotion is not what one would expect: confusion, angst or even frustration are among the ones you might experience. Confusion over why the seemingly good doctor--a quite likeable fellow--would have raped a beautiful but troubled teen. Angst over her death and her parents' utter failure to effectively reach out to her prior to her senseless suicide. Or frustration over Detective Hank Madden's inability to clearly separate himself from the rape investigation.

Because these are all realistic responses to similar traumatic events one might experience in life, Carnoy's writing comes across as bona fide. He does weave the story back and forth, bringing to mind a good fugue, but that merely serves to keep the reader on her toes.

The only complaint this particular reader had was this: I got bogged down at one point. The story just seemed to drone on in no specific direction, and I was left wondering where Carnoy as the conductor of this work was taking me. Turns out, it was to a finale that was anything but dull and monotonous!

Carnoy accomplishes many things with the melodic story he tells in Knife Music. Among them, he gives his readers an ethical dilemma to ponder, provides them with characters we come to care about, and ties in a social issue that couldn't be more fitting in view of the current Penn State scandal.

But it is the final movement that any maestro would be proud of. This is one reader who will gladly cry, "Encore, encore!"

[Laura P. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Long boring passages in this book seem to have been inserted just to make it long enough. It’s very hard to like the main character. I listened to the audiobook and the very good reader Kristoffer Tabori was wasted on this one. Final verdict: don’t bother.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've had this ARC edition of KNIFE MUSIC on my shelves for over ten years and finally got around to reading it. And I did rather enjoy this unusual thriller. The protagonist, Dr. Ted Cogan, operates on a young 16-year-old high school girl named Kristen one night after she had run off the road and totaled her car by hitting a telephone pole (note: for some reason in the book they kept calling it a telephone poll...hopefully, this was corrected in the final published version). Anyway, Cogan is able to save Kristen after successfully removing her spleen. But then several months later, after getting drunk at a frat party, Kristen is taken to the doctor's house by a friend for possible treatment. Cogan allows her to spend the night in his guest room but later is accused of raping her after she commits suicide and leaves a journal which describes the doctor having sex with her while she was staying in the guest room. Based on this, the police could charge the doctor with murder. The detective assigned to case, Hank Madden, had been abused and raped by a doctor when he was a boy which may make him prejudicial against Cogan. But did Cogan have sex with Kristen? Or was it all in the girl's imagination? Unfortunately for him, Kristen's friend, Carrie, who took her to Cogan's house on the night in question, claims to have witnessed Cogan having sex with Kristen. So Cogan must try to get to the truth to save his life and career...

I did enjoy this one although I think it could have been shortened somewhat. The author tended to go into a lot of extraneous detail about some of the side characters and the workings of the hospital where Cogan practiced. This is also the first book in a series featuring Detective Madden, however, Madden really didn't seem to play a major role in the story...maybe this changes in the next volumes. The story did have some twists I wasn't expecting and the ending was a complete surprise! Overall, a mild recommendation for this one.

[Linda Boa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to follow at https://crimeworm.WordPress.com/

[Elyse Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the perfect book for 'my box', .....(time I spend in my sauna). I can't read paper books in the sauna for too long before the pages begin to come apart, or curl at the corners---
so Kindle reading is great for my 'alone' time in 'THE HOT BOX'. I can't give a full review yet ---because I have really just started --- (I'm also reading "Crossing To Safety" by Wallace Stegner" at the same time: NOT in the box) -- but I like taking this "Knife Music" with me 'in-the-box'.


What I'm excited about is to meet this author, (David Carnoy), next week at Kepler's when he speaks about his new book: "The Big Exit". (looks like another fun read). The mystery takes place in MY CITY! (always fun)

Interesting: Stegner (no longer living) & Carnoy, (hot new author), lol.....both different types of writers --
---both authors from this area in Northern Calif.---
1987 ---(Stegner) ---how much was an ice cream cone? 60

cents? 80 cents?
2012 ---Carnoy --- how much is a small cup of frozen yogurt? $3.50
Its fun to pay attention to the changes in time, culture, cost, different types of pressure & stress....etc. etc.

note: I'm a sucker for local authors --and want to meet all of them! I think we have wonderful authors living in the Bay Area!

DON'T get sick Nov. 14th (and not show up, Mr. David, Carnoy) ---even though the remodel-job of Keplers' is ....well,.....(not much to look at right now)

elyse



elyse

[Mariana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found it to be a fast read. I wasn't very interested in the story
and felt no sympathy for the doctor. I felt no involvement with the
characters, and found them to be not very nuanced. I think the author
was attempting too many "twists" and instead of being suspenseful, I
felt that it was just dragging. I also felt that the rapes were
trivialized and there was no real connection to the trauma this girl
went through. She committed suicide and never once was there any
attempt to try to get into her head. I felt that the author could
have had a very good book, had he focused more on the characters and
not on the minutiae that he chose to focus on. There was so much crap
about the detective's history; the doctor's friends; his dating... all
kinds of nonsense that added nothing to the story. There was not one
character that I sympathized with and felt I could root for. They all
seemed so pathetic.

Overall, I was not very moved by this story and would not be inclined
to read another from this author.

I don't know which book came first, but it felt like he was going for something like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo... but failed miserably. At least with TGwtDT, you have Lisbeth; who is supreme kick-ass and really carries the book. In Knife Music, I felt that there was no one to root for, or even like.

[İlkim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Koşuştumacaydı, hazırlanmaydı felan derken bir türlü girip yazamadım yorumu. Neşter müziği garip bir kitap. Kurgu fena değil ama işleyiş çok yavaş olduğundan bu kitabı bitirmek zor oldu benim için. En başta kızın intihar etme nedeni bir hayli bariz gibi gösteriliyor, ama tabi ki işler bundan daha karmaşık. Bunun altından nasıl bir kurgu çıkacak diye merak etmiştim ben de. Kitap kızın yaşadıklarını, kızın arkadaşının abisinin yaşadıklarını, dedektifimizin yaşadıklarını, doktorun yaşadıklarını uzun uzun anlatıyor. Bu yüzden yavaş ilerliyor zaten. Ama neticede tempo hızlandıkça merak unsuru devreye giriyor ve şaşırtıcı kısım en sonda geliyor bana göre. İlginç bir kitap, şiddetle önermesem de merak edenlere tavsiye edilir.

[Cindy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is probably the most tedious book I have ever read. The dialog just gets more and more minute - delving in depth into characters who no one cares about instead of concentrating on the central story. The characters would give you their life story ad nauseum and I just couldn't take it any more.

Someone once told me to give a book I was reading 100 pages and then decide, so that has been my rule, and in many cases I was very glad that I did. I couldn't finish it, and I gave it MORE than 100 pages! A waste of time.

[Ted Barringer · Rating 3 out of 5]

First time writer, even though I didn't pick it up until 8 years or so after publication. Overall I guess it was pretty good, the twist at the end that most people on Goodreads rave about is pretty good - but it is also telegraphed, after the first final scene of the book. It involves the characters and their interest in baseball, so it can't be all bad.
Someone mentioned that unless you are a woman or a teenage girl, don't try to write a diary as if you are. Note to Mr. Carnoy, don't do that again - very annoying.
If I stumble across more books from this writer, I'll give them a shot.
Ho-Hum, but for the most part I enjoyed this book. Read it, why not?

[Pamela · Rating 1 out of 5]

First Important Note to Authors: If you are neither 16 years old nor a girl do NOT attempt to write entries in a 16 year old girl's diary! It does NOT work! No matter how many "totallys" and "likes" you sprinkle around, it does NOT work. The result isn't just unrealistic, it's bad, embarrassingly bad! (This is especially evident in the badly written entries dealing with the demographics at the girl's school.)

Second Important Note to Authors: A "twist" ending doesn't mean something you pull out of the thin air in your behind. You have to have at least SOME foreshadowing.

Important Note to Self: No more Carnoy!

[Bek · Rating 1 out of 5]

With apologies to Avenue Q:

Everyone in this book's a rapist at tiiiimes!
Drive a girl to suicide with awful sex criiiiimes!
But no one will just admit
The part that they had played in it
So we'll just watch the stereotypes come truuuuue
And this concludes my one star review!

(Seriously, I've spent a few days pondering why I hated the book so much -- it's because EVERY character is a stereotype: the burnt-out surgeon who makes a bad decision, the douchebag frat boys, the angry women who just melt for a handsome man. And just FYI, the answer to "whodunit" shouldn't be "everyone".)

[Sarah Gregg · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was so maddeningly frustrating! Not only was it completely unbelievable at every level, I was left asking myself why the author would have ever even wanted to tell this dumb story. It was ridiculously far-fetched and the characters were all unlikeable, to the point of there not being a single redeeming quality among them. Steer clear of this loser.

[Nora · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could give this 3.75 stars. I can't give it four because that's reserved for books like "Beach Music" and "The Help." But I REALLY enjoyed this and it kept surprising me right up to the very last minute!! (I listened to audio version) I can't wait to read/listen to his next book!!

[Janelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Several twists and turns. It was a quick read with an ending I never would have guessed!

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining story but the author goes into ridiculous detail about people and events that are barely relevant to the story. I think this is what happens without a decent editor...

[Irene · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of boring--where was the suspense?

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story with a fabulous twist at the end!

[Jon Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good page turner for the beach with surprise ending.

[Rachael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great, messy thriller

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book took a number of twists and turns such that I never saw some of them coming, especially the final one. Often, books end with an epilogue or tying up some of the small loose ends from the plot, but not this one. You have to read to the very last page. Overall, the plot was OK, but not what I expected prior to reading it. The early parts of the book are the best, where Dr. Cogan is in his element as a trauma surgeon, triaging and treating the patients who come through the doors of the ER, including a teenage car accident victim. The teenager's diary details an ongoing love affair with Cogan, including sex, and not long after her parents discover the diry, the girl kills herself. From there, the book shifts into a detective story, one side trying to prove that Cogan's actions directly led to the girl's death, while Cogan and his lawyer feel there is more to the story than just what the diary says. I read it for the medical angle, thinking that perhaps there was a sexual encounter at the hospital that would uncover a creepy doctor who gets his thrills from incapacitated patients while maintaining a sterling professional reputation, or something to that effect, so when the medical angle was dropped for the most part, it became an ordinary detective book to me. Not a bad one, just one I likely would not have read if Cogan was a teacher, lawyer, counselor, etc.

[Kate Muriel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh. Incrediboring.

I nearly quit this one at least half a dozen times, but after coming on here and skimming some of the other reviews and seeing brief mentions of an alleged "twist ending," I kind of wanted to see what the twist would be. Except when I got there (and it's literally the last couple pages), I was still just like, "Oh... that was it?"

Almost every character in this book is grossly misogynistic to some degree and/or ridiculously annoying. So much of the narrative is just irrelevant rambling about things that have nothing to do with the actual plot. Also, when I read the author's acknowledgements at the beginning thanking various law enforcement and medical professionals for providing him with info, I suppose that should have been the tip-off that he was going to info dump various medical procedures and technology and such into the book in an effort to make the doctor sound more doctorly. Only he just sounds like a walking textbook and it comes off as obvious and obnoxious.

Long story short, definitely one of my least favorites this year. The characters are all just stereotypes and that doesn't fly with me.

[Neil Pierson · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Knife Music" is slang for the music played in the operating room during surgery.

Did Dr. Ted Cogan rape his 16 year old patient? Is that why she committed suicide?

Serviceable mystery with much emphasis on the sex lives of its characters. Someone told the author to put in a lot of place references in the Palo Alto area, in case you plan to visit.

For me, at least, there's a mystery in the mystery: At one point, the DA gives Dr. Cogan a transcript of an interview with a witness conducted by Dr. Cogan's defense attorney. At another point, Cogan decides not to tell his attorney about something he's found because she would have to share the information with the DA. I thought the DA had to disclose information to the defense sometimes, but not vice versa?

This is probably a good airplane book. But if you have a need to know about attorney-client privilege, this may not be a good source.

[Merve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hank Madden serisiymiş resmen... Neysem neysem, Kristine 16 yaşında genç bir kız bir gün bir kaza geçirir ve 45 yaşlarındaki Dr Cogan onu tedavi eder. Böyle ki hastanede kalan Kristine ve arkadaşı Carrie doktorun yakışıklı olduğunu düşünüp onun etrafında dolaşmaya başlarlar. Ayrıca hikaye bir yıl sonrasını da anlatır, Kristine intihar etmiştir ve günlüğünde doktor ile cinsel ilişkiye girdiğini yazmıştır, ailesi de bu günlüğü bulmuş ve doktoru suçlamaya başlamıştır. Davaya ise çocukken bir doktor tarafından taciz edilen Madden adlı dedektif bakmaktadır.
🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀
Kitabın konusu bu, başlarda güzel başladı, ayy ne olacak dedim.ama sonra duraganlasti, bir gereksiz ayrıntı falan sıktı. Çok polisiye olduğunu da söyleyemeyeceğim, daha çok gizem. Madden i hiç sevemedim. Polis nedir, zekidir araştırır ama o Cogan'ı bekledi araştırsın diye. O yüzdendir ki 😌😌😌 sonunu da tabi ki tahmin ettim, şaşırtmadı

Verdiği güzel tıpsal bilgiler için teşekkür ederim 🙃

3/5

[Olena Orlova · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5/5

Музыкой ножей хирурги называют музыку, которую ставят во время операций. Диск с такой музыкой становится одной из улик против доктора Когана, поскольку найден в ноутбуке погибшей девушки. И это лишь подливает масла в огонь, т.к. ранее был найден дневник, в котором девушка описывает секс с этим самым доктором...

Врачи, преступление, тайна - примерно мой замес :) Но повествование неспешное. Неспешное настолько, что к концу первой трети книги я заглянула в конец. Заглянула, а-балдела и вернулась читать как же автор приведет к такой развязке. А автор и не собирался приводить к ней прямым путем. Он как фокусник со шляпой и кроликом в ней: когда он накидывает платок на шляпу, ты уже заранее знаешь, что потом он вытащит из нее кролика. И он вытаскивает его, но кролик оказывается не совсем кроликом, а... хм... тушканчиком, например (тоже уши большие).

В общем, мне понравилось.

[Sharon C · Rating 2 out of 5]

A decent debut

I think David Carnoy shows great promise, and I will definitely give his second novel a try. However, Knife Music is just so-so. The two main characters are a surgeon named Ted Cogan and the police detective who is investigating him for a statutory rape that ended in suicide.

A lot of the novel just doesn't ring true, nor does the dialogue of the teenagers in the book. I didn't understand the motivations of any of the main characters, which made the novel move slowly. There is a "big twist" at the end, but it frankly came out of nowhere and was simply sad and sordid. Not recommended.

[Sophie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was sitting around on my "books I'm embarrassed to have" shelf and advertised itself as being like Presumed Innocent, so I picked it up to read on the treadmill. The ER scenes added some diversified drama (not a genre I usually read) and I do find it interesting to read men's writing/their weird observations about women, never sure whether they're just hamming it up though. But other than some interesting character quirks and facts about the Menlo Park, this wasn't a page turner at all, and I figured out 2/3rds of it by the middle (the important bits, the last part didn't make sense and was clearly only there because now for some reason every book needs multiple twists).

[Jovdb · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

There was so much filler in this book! It dragged down the story and wasn’t necessary to the plot.

None of the characters were really interesting; most were self centred and didn’t elicit sympathy, except, perhaps, Kristen. But even for her, the reading of her diary was excruciating! It detracted from her personality.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I logged into my NOOK account after years of neglect and started reading this. I forgot I had already read it until a few pages in, and remembering the ending I swiped back and remembered how much I had enjoyed it. SO good!

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very engaging mystery revolving around the death of a young girl by suicide and who might have driven her to it. Good character development, clever plotting, and one nice little twist at the very end. A fast and fun read.

[Lea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Might be better as a regular book (I listened to the audio) and just want as captivated. There are twists that lead the reader in different directions and a surprising end twist. I would consider this author again, just not an audiobook.