El cirujano

by Frank G. Slaughter

Battle against corruption! Bruce Graham volunteered for service the day after pearl Harbor. The beautiful reporter who interviewed him on his way to camp called him "Surgeon USA". And she continued to think about her subject long after her column has been printed. Bruce was a gifted and dedicated doctor, and he wanted to use his skill in the midst of combat. But when he got entangled with Representative Harold Reardon and that unscrupulous Congressman's lovely and amorous financee, he found himself on the firing line with his own conscience.

Genres: Fiction

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Frank Gill Slaughter , pen-name Frank G. Slaughter, pseudonym C.V. Terry, was an American novelist and physician whose books sold more than 60 million copies. His novels drew on his own experience as a doctor and his interest in history and the Bible. Through his novels, he often introduced readers to new findings in medical research and new medical technologies.

Slaughter was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Stephen Lucious Slaughter and Sarah "Sallie" Nicholson Gill. When he was about five years old, his family moved to a farm near Berea, North Carolina, which is west of Oxford, North Carolina. He earned a bachelor's degree from Trinity College (now Duke University) at 17 and went to medical school at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He began writing fiction in 1935 while a physician at Riverside Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida.

Books by Slaughter include The Purple Quest, Surgeon, U.S.A., Epidemic! , Tomorrow's Miracle and The Scarlet Cord. Slaughter died May 17, 2001 in Jacksonville, Florida.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF at 110 pages

Sometimes, finding random, obscure old books can get a forgotten gem, but usually, it's just rightfully forgotten fluff. That describes this pretty well - the book is going for atmospherics, but falls short just because, from a modern perspective at least, it's fairly cliched and trite. The way Slaughter writes women is cringe-worthy, reminding me mainly of the more misogynistic movies from the era. This is particularly true in the love triangle between the innocent woman and the more dangerous, alluring one. The latter's dialogue in particular is just unrealistic, and not clever enough to justify it. I will say that I respect this book for portraying military and political corruption honestly, rather than romanticizing these institutions or portraying the corruption as exceptional. But this book just isn't well-written enough to capture the intrigue that this corruption might have. In particular, I don't care for how Slaughter will often set up and then skip scenes, or cover long periods of time in a single paragraph. It doesn't make for a very good flow for the book; at times, it's even a little confusing. It doesn't help that the story itself is rather meandering - I stopped over a third of the way into the book, and the main plot still hadn't started yet, with a subplot that I thought might be the main story having just resolved itself. It's hard to understand why we're reading what we're reading at any given point, and it doesn't make for a good structure. Finally, the protagonist (whose name I can't be bothered to remember) just isn't very interesting; he's a standard everyman for the story, with the added annoyance of being the very best at what he does (from the era when authors didn't even have the courtesy to make their everymen realistically mediocre). He's a very bland perspective to see this story from. Overall, this book doesn't have much to recommend it - there's a reason it hasn't been reprinted or remembered.

[Paige Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very enjoyable book. It reads like a romantic, political/military/medical drama and a somewhat predictable 1940s war movie script... but that is what makes it pleasant! I can picture the scenes and hear the dialog in my head, as if I'm actually watching a classic film.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting storyline. Definitely a keeper. =)