Failing to save a beautiful young woman who arrived at his emergency room in a coma, doctor Carroll Monks, struggling against a lawsuit by the victim's grieving parents, discovers a sinister link between the girl's death and a world-famous plastic surgeon. Reprint.
Neil McMahon grew up in Chicago, holds a degree in psychology from Stanford, and has lived in Montana since 1971. His wife, Kim, coordinates the annual Montana Festival Of The Book. Along with writing, he spent many years working as a carpenter. He has published ten thrillers in addition to co-authoring, with James Patterson, the #1 New York Times bestseller, TOYS. His first three novels, horror thrillers NEXT, AFTER LUCIFER; ADVERSARY; and CAST ANGELS DOWN TO HELL, are newly released for the first time since their original publication 1987-90.
Third in the series about San Francisco ER doctor Carroll Monks, this one has him doing more sleuthing than healing. He's tough, sexy, and hard-drinking in the Travis McGee tradition. He goes up against a millionaire plastic surgeon, which moves him to some rather predictable moralizing about the American obsession with youth and beauty. The plot is somewhat predictable too, a fault the author must have sensed, because he tacks on a surprise ending that leaves a reader shrugging rather than gasping.
It was a good thriller. I had mixed feelings about the protagonist but like most of us he had a mix of good and some flaws. It's not a book I'll remember a year or two from now so I gave it a 3.
As much as I love twists in the end to throw you off, this one twisted to far. It incorporated a very minor part of the book, almost irrelevant, in order to change things up. If he really wanted to end it the way he did, he needed to spend more time developing that part of the story to make it more clear at the end. Other than that, it was an entertaining book.
My only complaint is that I can't see the police allowing an ER doc to aid in an investigation to the degree Dr. Monk did at the end... and that I don't know that there was enough of a reason for getting a warrant.
Quite scary for a medical thriller, though I was able to guess who the killer was early and then he had me second guessing myself. Fast paced with enough booze to get you drunk just reading.
I read three of McMahon's other books. Two of these were set in Montana, the other in San Francisco as this one is. The others, especially the Montana books were better. Much better.