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SURGICAL RISK
by Robert I. Katz
Willowgate Press, September 2002
236 pages
$12.95
ISBN: 1930008058


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Robert I. Katz puts his medical training to use in writing the first novel of a new mystery series. The author takes us inside Easton Medical Center in New York City and shows us the day-by-day in the life of Dr. Richard Kurtz. He is the narrator of the story and will lead the reader into a murder investigation.

Dr. Sharon Lee, a young obstetrician working at Easton Medical, was found strangled to death in a room reserved for staff members. The local police are called and Detective Barent will be working the case. Dr. Kurtz gets immediately involved because he shared a relationship with the murder victim. He confesses his affair to Barent and finds out that they share a rapport from their pasts working at C. I. D. They will work together to try to find the killer. Unfortunately, the story is not very convincing.

The plot is poorly constructed when there is no smooth transition between scenes and chapters. The book serves as a tool for the author to show the daily routine inside a hospital. He relates tales about unusual things that might happen to doctor's patients. What Katz forgets is that a murder has taken place inside the building. Kurtz is supposed to have had an affair with Dr. Lee but he does not have many memories about it. If they had such an awful relationship one would expect him to think about the past. My other complaint with Kurtz is when he goes on vacation to Mexico. If one is going to go tomorrow on vacation, wouldn't they be thinking about it today by counting the hours? The minutes? The seconds? It is winter in New York in Surgical Risk, wouldn't you like to get away?

The author develops his characters with random scenes for which the reader piece together in order to file for later. Every once in a while he will give us a tidbit about one of the players offering an insight. Even though we meet Barent at the start of the novel it is not until much later that we learn his first name (Lew). We slowly learn about his family, his interests, among other things at the expense of the story. Katz could have made this detective more mysterious like Bill Pronzini's Nameless detective series in which the reader never gets to learns the character's real name.

The murder investigation is standard boilerplate with an obvious red herring. By the time the murderer is revealed, one does not really care. It drags the story toward an unremarkable ending regarding Kurtz's love life. There are several good intentions in writing this novel but it still needs a lot of work. Should there be a second Barent/Kurtz the author should concentrate on a stronger plot structure and character development. The surgical risk will be up to the publisher.

Reviewed by Angel L. Soto, October 2002

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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