Death's Pale Flag

by Gary R. Simonds

In this Literary Titan Book Award Winner, A highly-successful brain surgeon begins to encounter ghosts.

Brain surgeon and unlikely war hero, Ryan Brenan, has it all. A booming practice, a beautiful home in an idyllic setting, and a happy loving family. Then, the apparitions begin. Subtle at first, but soon there's no doubt about it, he's seeing ghosts, spirits, the undead. Of course, he could just be going nuts, cracking under the pressure of his constant exposure to death, mayhem, and tragedy. But, he believes he has proof that the ghosts are very real, and that they are specifically haunting him.
 

Genres: Fiction, Psychological Thriller

394 pages, Paperback

Published June 27, 2023

About the author

Gary Simonds practiced the full breadth of neurosurgery for decades in the US Army, Geisinger Clinic, and as the Chief of Neurosurgery at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. He has performed thousands of highly complex procedures on adults and children and cared for tens of thousands of patients. In addition to his expertise in neurosurgery and the neurosciences, he is interest in an array of related subjects including: medical ethics, medical socioeconomics, humanism, doctor patient interactions, patient advocacy, and burnout and psychological distress in healthcare workers. He has co-authored with Clinical Psychologist Wayne Sotile three non-fiction books on burnout and resilience in healthcare workers and has recently written a related award-winning novels, Death's Pale Flag and One Happy Accident. His next novel, Murder On Cherry Street is in its second draft stage. Gary stepped away from clinical neurosurgery in 2020 but still teaches undergraduates and medical students at Virginia Tech. He lives in Black Mountain NC in a log cabin with wife, Cindy, and border collie, Rory, and is excited to connect with his readers and interested parties over a range of subjects.

Reviews

[Codie Wallace]

DNF:(

Going into this book there was a lot I was excited for. I was ready to dig deep into a psychological Thriller/Fiction. I know some people love our slow burns. But a slow burn in Thriller is not the way to go.

I was entertained about Ryan. It was like I was reading Neurosurgeon for Dummies. Everything was very easy to understand and be able to vision. But, I could not tie in with the story.
Yes, Ryan was very relatable. Working hours on hours. Constantly awake and busy. He never had time for his family. Always being on call made it hard for him to live a reliable life. Some faults were his though. Picking up calls when he was “off-call” weekend. He had a passion and he wanted to deliver it to everyone. But that comes with consequences and it messes with his Mentality.

I wish I was able to get to the “Ghosts” and visions portion Ryan was getting. But, I just couldn’t get past the long paragraphs of random. There wasn’t enough action to keep me interested.

[Mosufa Zainab]

3.5 stars
A neurosurgeon buried in hero complex is convincing the world that ghosts are real. Frustratingly egocentric at times but serves a cautionary tale to future physicians. Appreciated the humor woven in at the most odd times. Wished it was more fast-paced on the thriller front.

[Cheyenne tiller]

Honestly so disappointed by the ending. I was excited and expecting some major plot twist or explanation for why he was hallucinating and seeing ghost everywhere. But the book did not give an explanation, I guess it was supposed to be left up for interpretation.

3 stars for the writing style and great supporting characters.

[Literary Reviewer]

Death’s Pale Flag by Gary Simonds is a thrilling book about the experiences of a neurosurgeon who loves his work. Ryan, the protagonist, becomes so involved with the patients that every death on his table takes a part of his heart and soul. He wants to save everyone, which leads to overworking every day and on weekends. His excessive busyness with work becomes a challenge because he starts forgetting his family.

Ryan’s work completely takes over all aspects of his life, and he begins to see ghosts or hallucinations of the people who died due to medical complications. They appear to be the patients he couldn’t save on the operating table. The doctor tries to understand the reasons within his capacity and struggles to decipher these apparitions. This further worsens his health, work, and family life. As his career becomes Ryan’s only respite and his family drifts away from him, one catastrophic event may bring him closer to taking life more seriously.

I found the writing style of this book captivating, and I enjoyed the intense details of brain surgeries in an easy-to-understand language that I could follow. It deepened my appreciation for neurosurgery and the delicate, life-saving procedure. In addition, the author did a brilliant job of expressing how remaining the life of a neurosurgeon can be and how challenging work-life balance can be to achieve, especially with a career in the medical field. Ryan’s emotional journey is captured perfectly, along with other characters in the book, and the plot development is exceptional.

The story’s progression blended well with the period, and I found the neurosurgeon’s personal and professional challenges exciting and, at times, amusing, which only made the book more enjoyable to read. This is a compelling book with a realistic plot woven into a fantasy story. Death’s Pale Flag by Gary Simonds is an excellent book, combining elements of a thriller, medical drama, comedy, and paranormal themes. It’s a worthwhile read, and I recommend it to fans of supernatural thrillers.

[Stace]

Death’s Pale Flag by author Gary R. Simonds is a psychological medical thriller with a paranormal theme running through it. Some may consider it to be mild horror.

The plot follows Doctor Ryan Brenan an on-call neurosurgeon who carries out surgeries on both children and adults, something that is unusual in his field.

He works incredibly long hours, often neglecting his own family, including his wife, and daughters, to save other’s lives. After a very long and hard operation in which he saves the life of a young girl, Ryan starts to have episodes where he sees ghosts or apparitions of those he couldn’t save. Whether these are real or not is up to the reader to work out but the ending – which I was not a fan of, will give you some clarity.

One of the first things you will notice when you begin reading Death’s Pale Flag is that it is full of medical jargon and lots of operations. The jargon, however, is explained in easy-to-understand language. The operations are not great for anyone who may be squeamish.

The story moves along at a decent pace and the characters are plentiful and mainly likeable, especially Ryan, he certainly is a down-to-earth good guy. The paranormal aspect was okay but not really to my taste, especially Ryan’s recurring dream. I also got confused sometimes when it came to the paranormal goings-on.

Overall, the book is certainly different and was a quick read. If you love psychological thrillers and want an added paranormal aspect to your read then give this book a go.

[Janalyn, the blind reviewer]

Ryan is a heroic surgeon a husband and a father in Pennsylvania and sometimes his career in family battle it out only for his career to win this eventually causes Ryan severe problems and he starts hallucinating mostly seeing a man who he also has nightmares about reading an anatomy book with gross pictures to his girls but his hallucinations are limited to this man he also sees things that couldn’t possibly be there but to him they are is he going crazy or is this just a side effect of his workaholic schedule his wife Kelly is worried about him as it is the local vicar and his good friend Rob this was such a good book although they have a lot of surgical jargon it’s not so much that it hinders the book I just found that was more than normal in a book about a surgeant you could tell the author is well-versed in the subject. Although I gave a brief summary there is much more to this book and it was longer than I thought it was going to be but all of it was entertaining his hallucinations get worse and I don’t want to give anything away just know this is a great book and although it deals in paranormal it’s very apropos to the story and a solid four star read if not more. I would definitely be down to read more from this author in the future I just wish I could say more but it would give so much away. I received this book from NetGalley and the publisher but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

[Anthony]

The Review

This was a compelling and captivating medical thriller meets paranormal fantasy read. The author does an amazing job of grounding this story in as much reality as possible, tying the paranormal aspects of the narrative into the protagonist’s work in the medical field. As someone interested in the paranormal and who has become fascinated with doctor’s studies and theories regarding life after death, the setting and atmosphere the author created in his work really struck home in terms of the tone they were trying to achieve.

To me, the heart of this narrative rested in the character growth and the emotional core related to the protagonist’s personal life and work-life imbalances. The way the author was able to bring realism and expertise to the protagonist’s story and work in the field of brain surgery made this a compelling read, and the way work and the experiences as a surgeon would impact his home life set the stage perfectly for the paranormal aspect of the narrative to come into play, making for an exciting story.

The Verdict

Memorable, thrilling, and entertaining, author Gary Simonds’s “Death’s Pale Flag” is a must-read medical thriller meets paranormal novel of 2023! The grounded realism of the characters and backstory with the engaging paranormal twists and fascinating connection between the mind and the paranormal the author touches upon made this a truly amazing novel to get lost in.

[Ruth]

Gary Simons met his objective

Death's Pale Flag was written to move the reader beyond an objective, textbook understanding of the stresses doctors are under that can result in PTSD and extreme burnout. Dr. Simond's goal was to use fiction as a means of giving us an imaginative and emotional awareness of the toll that happens when trying to save people who often can't be saved. People come into medical environment with prior traumatic experiences. They also have vulnerabilities based on their particular personality and their home situation. Recognizing what is happening is also difficult because there are many possible explanations for deteriorating mental health but often testing just rules out possible conditions without yielding a clear answer to the process going on and how to turn it around. I've been interested in neurology for 50 years and I finished this book not knowing how to process the way this case manifested itself. I suspect the genre had to be fiction because textbooks are clear about what is delusional and and quick to label deviations from the normal. Instead we are left with uncertainty about what is real and what isn't as well as questioning how far a surgeon's mental health can deteriorate and still continue having a packed surgical schedule.

[Amanda]

I received a copy of this book from a Goodreads giveaway.

I was excited to read this book but it ended up being really disappointing. We heard more about surgeries, patients accidents, and work related things of our main character Ryan than anything else. There were snippets of his home life and family, but not nearly as much of the "fantastical journey into the paranormal" we were promised in the description. It's very clear our author was a neurosurgeon and I appreciate the detail he was able to add in, but it was too much of the story.
And Ryan was such a problem but at the end we had Kelly putting herself through a guilt trip about how bad of a wife she is when Ryan won't talk to her, share with her, alienates her??? He had his moment, I guess, but I don't feel like it was enough for how poorly he treated his family.

The first chapter really drew me in, and I was so excited to read it after that portion, the writing throughout the book is well done, but the story let me down.

[Jacquelyn Dohoney]

The book was very well-written and engaging. I really liked that the main character was not the stereotypical narcissistic surgeon with a God complex. He was just a regular Joe who happened to be a surgeon, and also having a hell of a time because he’s seeing ghosts. The only thing I found myself wondering was, why all of a sudden after being a surgeon for so long is he now seeing these visions/ghosts? I did find myself intensely disliking his wife. I won’t spoil it, but I can tell you she was the most dislikeable character other maybe Woodfield. The story was great overall, but the last chapter was a little lackluster in my opinion. I was expecting a much bigger bang, but that’s just me!

Huge thanks to BQB Publishing and NetGalley for sending me this ARC for review! All of my reviews are given honestly!

[Martin Clark]

I’ve been on a roll with remarkable books lately. Immediately prior to reading Death’s Pale Flag, I was just blown away by Steve Saroff’s masterpiece, Paper Targets. And Death’s Pale Flag is also pretty darn amazing, just a delight, a book by a real-life neurosurgeon who can write like nobody’s business (think James Lee Burke or John Hart), who has built a smart, clever, challenging story (think Roland Merullo), and who—no surprise here—takes readers on a fascinating and often heartbreaking private tour of what it’s like to patch up people’s brains and spines. This is a ghost story that’ll make you cry and a marriage tale worthy of John Cheever that’ll scare the daylights out of you. A big hat tip and a deep bow to Gary Simonds—I was moved and entertained, and more important perhaps, I’m a little better person for having spent time with Ryan Brenan. Definitely five-star work.

[S. Jeyran Main]

‘Death’s Pale Flag’ is a psychological medical thriller and is about Ryan Brenan, a brain surgeon and a successful one at that. When he begins to see ghosts at first, he thinks that it’s hallucinations, but then he realizes that is not the case, and he begins to believe in paranormal phenomena. The concept of the storyline is intriguing because it begins with a normal pace and premise, but then the particular manner of the paranormal aspect of it really kicks the dynamic of the tale to another level.

The author pays attention to ensuring everything is described well. As Ryan attempts to balance the logical side of his brain with all the abnormal activities, you can easily see his conflict, and this becomes the beauty of the story.

I recommend this book to those who enjoy reading thrillers.

[Jk]

I won a free Kindle copy of this via a Goodreads Giveaway and would like to thank anyone who was involved in making that happen!

I really enjoyed learning about the life of a neurosurgeon and all of the things, negative and positive that come along with that. I thought that the paranormal aspect and how that ended up playing out was a clever metaphorical exploration of how the main character needed to stop dwelling on death and darkness and be fully present in the world of the living with his family. I found the story to be a little repetitive in the middle and think it could have been edited down a bit but overall, not a bad read!

[Ovel Merci]

Death's Pale Flag is a brilliantly unique thriller that perfectly balances high-stakes neurosurgery with genuine supernatural chills. Ryan Brenan is a fascinating protagonist, and the author makes you feel every ounce of his pressure and descent into uncertaintyI was constantly questioning what was real. The medical details are incredibly authentic without ever slowing the pace, and the growing dread kept me glued to my headphones. Michael Coward's narration is top-notch, capturing Ryan's fear and exhaustion flawlessly. This is a smart, suspenseful, and deeply original story about life, death, and what comes after. A must-listen for thriller fans. Highly recommended!

[Rebecca McCluskey]

Medical thrilled

How does a brain surgeon deal with hallucinations and potentially ghosts? Follow Ryan as he figures out what is happening in his life.

It's a good book, good writing and I did like that you don't need medical knowledge to understand what is happening in Ryan's day to day life.
What gets me is this is an extreme slow burn of a book. The action didn't happen until basically the end.
I think this would have been better as a novella, but it is worth the read.

[Reader]

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this book on audiotape. I’m not usually interested in books with paranormal themes, but this one was captivating. It also brought me into a new place, the operating room of a brain surgeon!

A side note: As I write this review, my husband sits on the balcony of our cruise ship docked at Penang, Malaysia while finishing Gary Simonds’s latest novel, One Happy Accident. He just closed the book and said, “I loved it!”
Christine Page

[Annarella]

An intriguing story featuring a brain surgeon that starts to see ghosts. It's a compelling and well written story, the MC is relatable and the characters are fleshed out.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

[Roger J.]

Not worth the time

Hardest, working, neurosurgeon in the world meets spooks. This is a story that goes nowhere quickly and stays there. This is the last word required to submit this review.

[Becky Bringewatt]

This was an interesting storyline, and the writing is good. I felt the ending came up short, and I would have liked more explanation.

[Bethany Wunsch]

It wasn’t bad, but just could not get into this book. Not for me.

[Michael Carlon]

What a ride

In Death’s Pale Flag, Gary Simonds made me feel as if I was in the operating room with Neurosurgeons, bone saw in hand, as well as in the throes of a crumbling marriage. He takes us on an emotional journey which has a very satisfying conclusion. I enjoy a good medical thriller, and Death’s Pale Flag doesn’t disappoint.

[Audrey]

I received a digital copy of Death's Pale Flag in a giveaway. I learned that the author Gary R. Simonds is actually a neurosurgeon just like the main character of this book. Ryan, who has a hero complex, starts seeing ghosts and his whole world starts to unravel. There is a little bit too much explanation of brain surgery, which takes away from the story. It was an interesting read and look into a brain surgeons' struggles. However, the ending seemed like a major let down.

[Teri M Brown]

Death's Pale Flag by Gary Simonds is a psychological thriller that had me from page one. The main character, Ryan, is a brain surgeon, so some of the medical stuff really hit home with me as my husband and I navigate his brain cancer diagnosis. However, I found what he does as a trauma neurosurgeon amazing. And because Simonds is a neurosurgeon, it is very accurate!

But the story isn't about a run-of-the-mill neurosurgeon and his patients. Instead, it is about Ryan, a highly educated man who begins to see ghosts - some from long ago and some far more recent. Why are they contacting him? What will his coworkers and family think? Are they real or is he cracking up?
​
I loved this story and was sad to see it end. Simonds did a magnificent job with character development. Definitely a must-read, even if psychological thriller is not usually on your TBR!