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Lenny Moss Mystery #1
This Won't Hurt a Bit
Drawing on his thirty years of nursing experience, mainly in critical care, nurse-author Timothy Sheard has written a gritty, realistic crime novel about life in a big-city hospital. His characters are lively, his pacing is swift, and his narrative captures the pressures and conflicts that break out when death is always near. In this case, death has a helping hand in the form of a calculating killer with a sardonic sense of humor. How else to explain the murderer's bizarre method for disposing of the first victim? The police are satisfied with their suspect, a hot-tempered laundry worker, but his co-workers don't buy it. They enlist the help of their union steward, Lenny Moss, a jailhouse lawyer who is used to interviewing reluctant witnesses and arguing hopeless cases. With his friends joining the investigation, Lenny comes face to face with the killer, only to contemplate his own death in the process.
322 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2001
1 person is currently reading
27 people want to read
About the author
Timothy Sheard
17 books2 followersHi. I'm a veteran nurse and have worked for 40 years in hospitals. I want to tell the world what it's really like on the front lines of the American health factory. So my crime stories capture the gritty, scary, funny and loving events I see every day in the hospital.
I'm also active in the National Writers Union and the labor movement, because working people need a champion to defend our livelihood and our dignity. So my stories include the struggles that everyday working people encounter on the job and in the community. I'm proud to tell these stories. They need to be read more widely.
Through the NWU I've helped nurture many aspring writers. Quite a few have gone on to be published. I moderate two writing groups a week, one on the job, one at work. If you have a desire to write and become published, I urge you to join the NWU and join or form a writers group - it's the best way to develop your craft and learn how to break into publishing.
There's lot of good suff on my web site, www.timsheard.com. Check it out.
Good luck, Tim Sheard
I'm also active in the National Writers Union and the labor movement, because working people need a champion to defend our livelihood and our dignity. So my stories include the struggles that everyday working people encounter on the job and in the community. I'm proud to tell these stories. They need to be read more widely.
Through the NWU I've helped nurture many aspring writers. Quite a few have gone on to be published. I moderate two writing groups a week, one on the job, one at work. If you have a desire to write and become published, I urge you to join the NWU and join or form a writers group - it's the best way to develop your craft and learn how to break into publishing.
There's lot of good suff on my web site, www.timsheard.com. Check it out.
Good luck, Tim Sheard
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 30, 2018
Paints a good picture of workers' lives in a big community hospital
I appreciate a competently written and enjoyable mystery which looks at people we take for granted. Very respectably done for a first novel, looking forward to reading more.
I appreciate a competently written and enjoyable mystery which looks at people we take for granted. Very respectably done for a first novel, looking forward to reading more.
May 25, 2018
For a long time, Joe West, head of hospital security has wanted to see Regis fry. Now he's hanging the murder charge of a resident doctor on him, and Lenny, a custodian and union steward, has been appointed by the people he represents to find out what really happened.
The characters in this include at least one nurse -- Gary, five doctors -- a psychiatrist, a urologist, a gynecologist, a general practitioner, and a vascular surgeon. The housekeeping staff, residents, and medical students. Also are Regis' wife and other individuals who make up the zany folks in This Won't Hurt A Bit.
The author captures the underpinnings of a hospital. From the creepy, darkened dungeon-like atmosphere of the not-so-used parts of the hospital basement with pipes running immediately overhead to the lives of the ones who keep the hospital clean and presentable. The cleaning staff, morgue, and other not-so-pretty departments are the ones relegated to the furthest reaches only to show up to spit-shine the prettier halls and rooms and then back to the underground where their supervisor's office is or to clock out at the end of the day.
We find Lenny in situations and places which in "real" life, most of us wouldn't dare attempt even at a time when security wasn't as tight as it is today. Determined to prove their co-worker Regis innocent, other employees assist Lenny in acts which could cost them their respective jobs.
Though the story was a bit too long and some of the tedium of every day life could have been omitted to shorten it, I thoroughly enjoyed the relationships between Lenny and his friends.
The characters in this include at least one nurse -- Gary, five doctors -- a psychiatrist, a urologist, a gynecologist, a general practitioner, and a vascular surgeon. The housekeeping staff, residents, and medical students. Also are Regis' wife and other individuals who make up the zany folks in This Won't Hurt A Bit.
The author captures the underpinnings of a hospital. From the creepy, darkened dungeon-like atmosphere of the not-so-used parts of the hospital basement with pipes running immediately overhead to the lives of the ones who keep the hospital clean and presentable. The cleaning staff, morgue, and other not-so-pretty departments are the ones relegated to the furthest reaches only to show up to spit-shine the prettier halls and rooms and then back to the underground where their supervisor's office is or to clock out at the end of the day.
We find Lenny in situations and places which in "real" life, most of us wouldn't dare attempt even at a time when security wasn't as tight as it is today. Determined to prove their co-worker Regis innocent, other employees assist Lenny in acts which could cost them their respective jobs.
Though the story was a bit too long and some of the tedium of every day life could have been omitted to shorten it, I thoroughly enjoyed the relationships between Lenny and his friends.
December 4, 2018
Five stars for an entertaining mystery in a hospital setting. Lenny Moss, hospital janitor and union shop steward needs to find the real killer to prove that it was not his co-worker. Moss and his co-workers looking for the murderer are all likable people. There does seem to be a bias against arrogant doctors, but only the arrogant ones.
There's not enough solid evidence, there are too many suspicious events that may or may not prove to be important. The clues show up, one by one, but they have to be put together like a jig-saw puzzle.
I plan to read more of Sheard's Lenny Moss mysteries.
There's not enough solid evidence, there are too many suspicious events that may or may not prove to be important. The clues show up, one by one, but they have to be put together like a jig-saw puzzle.
I plan to read more of Sheard's Lenny Moss mysteries.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews