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LIE STILL
by David Farris
William Morrow, October 2003
384 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 0060505540


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Dr Malcolm Ishmail hopes that his residency will go smoothly. He wants to be a surgeon and has high hopes for his learning experience. Unfortunately, things do not go as smoothly as he might desire. In fact when the book opens, he has returned home to Hooker, Nebraska to cover ER shifts in order to make ends meet.

He did the unthinkable by informing the medical board that the doctor he was working under, Mimi Lyle, was an incapable neurosurgeon. This is obviously a dangerous accusation and his career is threatened by the lies and allegations that begin to arise. In addition to this problem, he must also deal with a young patient who almost dies in the ER for no obvious reason. This incident and the threat of medical malpractice are enough to ruin his professional reputation. Ishmail must race to protect his remaining reputation and his livelihood from some unseen enemy.

LIE STILL, Farris's first novel, is a fast-paced medical thriller. It includes a lot of medical description, detail and hospital politics. These elements combine to create an informative thriller. It is difficult to determine whether the fact that hospitals have the same political traps and petty bickering as any corporation has is reassuring or frightening. Either way, this book does explore the idea of a self-righteous hero trying to overcome the bureaucratic process.

This book also contains an element of horror at the thought that a doctor would be allowed to teach/work at a medical teaching hospital and be unable to perform their job. Most people have a subconscious fear of leaving the hospital in worse condition then when they entered and this book plays off this fear. The terror is even worse when the doctor at fault is a neurosurgeon and is responsible for performing surgery in and around delicate brain tissue.

Reviewed by Sarah Dudley, April 2004

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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