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BETRAYAL
by Paul Carson
William Heinemann, August 2005
352 pages
10.99GBP
ISBN: 0434013048


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Paul Carson is noted, and justly so, for his medical thrillers that rush along at the speed of a laser. The Dublin physician has penned books on health but one can only assume these do not contain quite the pace nor the plot of SCALPEL, COLD STEEL, FINAL DUTY and AMBUSH, his novels prior to BETRAYAL.

True to habit Carson plunges his protagonist into peril within the first few pages of this latest work. Dr Frank Ryan, Chief Medical Officer to Harmon Penitentiary, is summoned to the prison at 3.30 am. Reluctantly, he leaves his lover Lisa Duggan in order to answer the summons given him in a distinctly suspicious phone call. He would have done better to remain in bed since once he is lured outside his fortress of an apartment, he is set upon and nearly killed. He regains consciousness in what he is told is a hospital, but is it?

Once Ryan is released from where he is being nursed and attempts to return to work, he learns he has become an embarrassment to his employers. Not only that, Lisa has disappeared and people where she worked deny all knowledge of her. In an attempt to solve the mystery of Lisa's disappearance and his own abduction and near slaughter, Ryan pursues all avenues, both savoury and unsavoury, the latter involving one of Dublin's most notorious criminals.

Frank's search takes him as far afield as Belgrade while his unlikely assistants include a journalist who does not inspire much confidence in his good faith. Ryan's hair-raising exploits and misadventures are told in counterpoint to his upbringing in country South Australia.

Carson's prose is always well-written and to the point. His invention of political manoeuvrings and plots are worthy of the most tortuous schemes devised by a spymaster. Ryan, as a character is not, perhaps, the most charming sort of fellow you would like to meet down at your nearest billabong; he seems to have a greater interest in matters amorous than problems medical but then other novels of Carson's also contain steamy slabs of sex. Nonetheless, the reader is likely to be convinced by the adventurous doctor. Perhaps the character of Lisa, the girlfriend, is not quite so credible.

It is always entertaining to read books written by authors with special knowledge of a subject and here Carson shines when discussing medical questions.

His references to things Australian were, perhaps, not quite so accurate. Although he pays tribute to South Australian sources in his acknowledgements, presumably he didn't have those sources read his manuscript. A bushie finding himself in Ryan's South Australia might be bemused to note distances measured in miles rather than kilometres.

No doubt, too, he might wonder just where he has been set down when, at night, he hears the howling of wolves. Were he to seek help from relatives, this unsophisticated bushie might, when crying to his parents for succour, be driven to distraction by learning that in future he must refer to his mother as 'mam' rather than 'mum'.

Perhaps he would rather be in Carson's Dublin where policemen attempt to intimidate passers-by with their flaunting of the Highway Code -- no doubt in case those same passers-by are tempted to flout that same Code.

Regardless of these picked nits, this is a thriller to be recommended to those looking for an ingenious puzzle with prescribed medical overtones.

Reviewed by Denise Pickles, August 2005

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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