Bait and Switch: A Kurtz and Barent Mystery

Kurtz and Barent Mysteries #8

by Robert I. Katz

From USA Today bestselling author Robert I. Katz.

Surgeon Richard Kurtz has recently accepted the position of Chief of the Division of General Surgery at Easton Medical Center, and is not surprised to find himself dealing with a new set of problems. Still, he had been expecting those problems to be professional, not personal, and so he is taken aback when Joanna Levinson, the wife of Peter Levinson, a surgeon, asks Kurtz to speak with her husband.

Peter Levinson is disturbed. He’s not sleeping at night. He’s going out at all hours. He’s visibly distressed.

Levinson, it turns out, has reasons to be distressed. An old friend, lawyer Richie Capaldi, has suffered a traumatic brain injury. Two other old friends have vanished…and then Peter Levinson is given an ultimatum by mobster Leo Berlusconi to pay back money that Berlusconi claims Levinson owes him.

Lew Barent and Harry Moran are investigating the assault on Richie Capaldi and Kurtz has information that might help them solve the case.

Kurtz is not a cop, as his cop friends keep reminding him, and he has no desire to interfere with a police investigation, but Kurtz has never run from a fight, and when the threats against Peter Levinson escalate, Kurtz, Barent and Moran find themselves embroiled in a conspiracy involving prostitution, fraud, blackmail and long-simmering revenge.

200 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 25, 2023

About the author

Robert I. Katz attended Columbia College and Northwestern University Medical School, and is on the faculty of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His first novel, Edward Maret was published by Willowgate in 2001 and won the ASA Literary Prize that year.

Reviews

[Linda Watkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Kurtz is a general surgeon practicing in a teaching hospital in New York and has recently been appointed Director of the Division of General Surgery at Easton Medical Center. He has been given to assume that the position is largely ceremonial and that little real work will be involved. However, that assumption is soon challenged when the wife of transplant surgeon, Peter Levinson, requests an appointment. She is concerned. Her husband has been staying out late at night, is moody, and, generally, out of sorts. She wants Kurtz to speak with him.

Dr. Kurtz is loath to get involved in one of his colleague’s personal dramas, but in his new role, he has to give it a shot. He finds out that one of Levinson’s best friends from childhood, Richie Capaldi, has been diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury after a brutal assault. To make matters worse, two of Levinson’s other close friends have disappeared without a trace. Kurtz, who also act as a police surgeon with the NYPD, turns to his detective colleague and friend, Lew Barent, to see if he can find out more about what happened to Capaldi and how it is related to Dr. Levinson.

In Bait and Switch, the eighth novel in the Kurtz and Barent Mysteries, author Katz presents the reader with an intricate puzzle involving medicine and the development of medical devices, the mafia, and investment strategies. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, which is my second Kurtz and Barent Mystery. Having worked in the academic medical environment for twenty years, I especially relished the author’s descriptions of academia and his observations on how the game is played there. And, yes, author Katz is right. Cardiovascular surgeons do think they are gods!

Bait and Switch is very entertaining and highly recommended read for those who enjoy medical thrillers and complex mysteries peopled by wonderful three-dimensional characters. Five big shiny stars!

[Cheryl McLeod · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another gripping tale of murder, mobs and mayhem

Good insight into the psychology of gambling addiction, mob internicine warfare and the interrelationships of Medical practices!
Robert Katz does it again, and keeps us guessing until the end.