Terminal Care

Title: Terminal Care Series: N/A Author: Christopher Stookey ISBN: 978-1-60975-029-9 Product Code: BK0042 Format: Trade Trade Paperback Pages: 340 Release Date: June 2010 Cover Price: $19.95 Our Price: $10.00     Additional Formats Available:   Book Pages: Jacket  Excerpt  Reviews

Book Reviews

Review by: Crystal Fulcher, My Reading Room, Crystal's Blogspot

Why I read this book: I am a sucker for medical thrillers, you can blame Robin Cook and Michael Crichton for that, so when I read the description of this book, I could not sign up fast enough. I love trying out new authors - you can find some really amazing books that way.

How is it driven: This is mainly plot driven - it's suspense/thriller, but there is a wonderful amount of character development as well - I loved getting to know Phil Pescoe.

My thoughts: I was sucked into this from the very first page. First off, Phil is very personable. He's had troubles in his personal life but he's moving on. He doesn't seem arrogant and he seems to like what he does which is being an emergency department doctor. Then as the story moves on, the suspense picks up and I found it hard to put down the first night I started reading even when my eyes were starting to close (I take a sleeping pill, it wasn't the book I promise). I woke up thinking about the book and could not wait to get back to it. I easily read 80 pages the first evening and I only read about 1 hour and the print is small so I was impressed how easy it read and how it kept me turning the pages.

The story never let up - I was enthralled through the book. I liked getting to know Phil and Clara and loved watching them work together to get to the bottom of what is going on. Terminal Care is a well-done medical thriller, always intense and interesting, but never too technical or hard to understand. I felt most of the story rings true, or at least feels real, not contrived. Unfortunately research has gone into the hands of private corporations and this is good in some ways and bad in others. Christopher Stookey doesn't use his book as a platform to speak for or against anything, just to create a fascinating and thrilling read. This is the medical thriller at it's best and I will look forward to future works by Mr. Stookey.

Rating: 4.75/5.0

Review by: Michelle Vasquez, Life in Review, Michelle V's Blogspot

Terminal Care by Christopher Stookey is a great medical drama. You can definitely tell that the author knows his stuff!

I love a good medical drama and this one is complete with mystery and suspense and romance. It is very well written, and it's obvious that the author knows the medical field, but yet there aren't a lot of big medical terms that are way over a normal person's head without explanation. I thought it was a great balance of making it realistic but making it so that the average person can read it and not get lost or bogged down in medical terms. I really enjoyed it!

The main character in the book is Phil Pescoe, and I found him to be an extremely likeable character! He's a good man with a good heart and he wants to do good for people. He's very easy to like! I was rooting for everything to turn out well for him throughout the story! He's a very normal, every-day, average person and very easy to relate to. Phil sees that some things are going on in the hospital that don't add up. He sets out, with the help of another doctor, to solve the mystery. And, other than that, I think you should just read the book and be surprised. I don't like to give away any of the plot!

My regular blog readers know that I review both Christian books and regular mainstream fiction. For those readers who want to know, this one is not a Christian fiction title.

I would definitely recommend this book. It's got a little something for everyone with great medical drama, mystery and suspense, and romance. The characters are likeable and easy to relate to. It's very well written and it hooks you from the start and keeps you hooked until the end. I think it's a great first novel for this talented author.

Review by: Jennifer Higgins, Rundpinne Book Reviews

Terminal Care by Christopher Stookey is an intense medical thriller filled with corporate cover-ups, ethical dilemmas, and delightful twists and turns woven in for good measure. Alzheimer’s patients in the East Annex are dying at an alarming rate, which happens to coincide with an experimental neurological medication. Stookey takes the reader deep inside Deaconess Hospital as well as through the city of San Francisco through the two main characters, Phil Pescoe and Clara Wong. Stookey creates deeply rich and realistic characters and his hero and heroine are both deeply flawed and yet remarkably likeable and relatable, making a fantastic team. Terminal Care is part medical procedural, part thriller, and part mystery and all three are expertly woven together to create a fast paced medical thriller. Stookey’s debut novel was an absolute delight to read and I look forward to more novels from this fine author. I would recommend Terminal Care to anyone looking for a good mystery/thriller.

Review by: George Hansen, MD, Author of "The Psychology of Pain"

Christopher Stookey has written a gem of a novel. It is at once a medical mystery thriller, a love story, a fun read, and an exposé into the dark world of drug company misdeeds.

The story follows Phil Pesco, an emergency room doctor, who investigates a surge of mysterious deaths among patients in the hospital’s Alzheimer’s ward.

His pursuit of the truth leads him into a morass of conspiracy and deception. As he races against time to save the patients, he himself becomes the target of a giant pharmaceutical company that will stop at nothing in its quest for profits.
 

He teams up with a fellow physician, the alluring and intelligent Clara Wong. In fact, it is she who pushes their investigation to its most dangerous limits. In Clara Wong, the author presents a masterful portrait of the modern heroine.
 

Stookey has produced a rich cast of compelling and believable characters, taken from life’s circus side-show. No doubt many are drawn from his own experience as an emergency physician. The victims of this sinister plot are not the usual beautiful young adults featured in the typical cloak and dagger thriller. Rather, they belong to the elder generation, the most vulnerable and often forgotten members of society. They may be our parents and our grandparents and, soon enough, us. Though they suffer from dementia, the author presents them with sympathy and humanity. The reader is drawn into their plight and feels as desperate to save them as do the story’s heroes.
 

The carefully crafted prose is a pleasure to read, more conversational than pedagogical, yet the reader gets an intimate glimpse into the practice of medicine, science, and the business of modern pharmaceuticals.
 

This story is sure to please lovers of great literature as well as those looking for a fast-paced thriller. It is destined to become a medical mystery classic.