Night Shift

July 1, 2022

When a good friend and colleague is found dead in the hospital parking lot, newly appointed medical examiner Dr. Laurie Montgomery asks doctor husband Jack Stapleton to investigate. He has to break a few rules, but he uncovers some ugly truths about the hospital where he works.

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September 15, 2022
A competent medical thriller from the genre's most famous practitioner. In the latest from the author of Coma (1977), husband-and-wife medical examiner team Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton return to investigate a death that hits close to home. The murder victim in question is Susan Passero, a hospital internist who's killed in a parking garage after her shift; she happens to be Laurie's "oldest and closest friend." While doctors at the hospital initially speculate that the death is due to a heart attack, Jack has his doubts and tries to figure out who might have a grudge against the late doctor. After poking around, he finds that Sue had "bump[ed] heads" with two fellow doctors and a hospital executive and that she believed there might be a medical serial killer on the loose in her hospital. Things get more urgent when a charge nurse at the hospital turns up dead, convincing Jack that something's afoot. Meanwhile, Jack also investigates the death of the wife of a police officer that was possibly staged to look like a suicide, and there's some family troubles thrown in for good measure. Cook's writing is not going to win any prizes--consider sentences like "Lots of sarcastic barbs was the bulk of their normal verbal interaction"--and his dialogue is dependably stilted. But Cook's readers are here for the suspense, and at least he's good at that part--it's a pretty solid page-turner even if his prose is as clunky as an engine that's about to seize. It's the kind of book you can take on vacation and leave there. An OK mystery that probably won't be the worst thing you read this year.

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October 3, 2022
In the opening chapter of bestseller Cook’s so-so 12th medical thriller featuring married physicians Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery (after 2019’s Genesis), an unidentified attacker kills internist Susan Passero in her car at the Manhattan Memorial Hospital parking garage by injection. That eliminates any doubt as to whether Susan was murdered, thus making New York City medical examiner Jack’s efforts to determine the cause of death unsuspenseful. Susan was Laurie’s doctor and her “oldest and closest friend,” so when Jack learns of Susan’s death, he’s determined to discover what caused an apparent fatal sudden cardiac event. His digging reveals a possible motive for murder: Susan had been examining the criteria her hospital’s Mortality and Morbidity Committee had been using to select cases to review. His inquiry, aided by Laurie, who happens to be his boss as the chief medical examiner, follows predictable lines, including a contrived denouement. Given that Cook has spent multiple books trying to establish his leads’ devoted relationship, Jack’s telling Laurie “your dear friend Sue Passero is downstairs in the cooler needing to be autopsied” may strike readers as a tad callous. Even series fans may be disappointed. Agent: Erica Silverman, Trident Media.