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In these days of whistleblowers in the media, Rob McCarthy’s latest tale in the Dr Harry Kent series seems well timed. Set in London, it hovers between medical and crime drama. Susan Bayliss, a young surgeon in a leading children’s hospital, accuses a high-profile colleague of negligence in a series of children’s deaths. She is suspended as a troublemaker but won’t be deterred from her claims. Then her body is discovered, after an apparent suicide. When he is drafted into the case, Kent, the damaged doctor-cum-medical examiner with the Metropolitan Police, questions whether Bayliss’s suicide was in fact a murder. The investigation gives Kent opportunities to relive old, destructive experiences. Forced to work with an old flame, taking a too-close look at the practices of fellow doctors, he is driven by his precarious lifestyle more and more towards dependence on prescription drugs and bouts of self-reproach. But, like Bayliss, he won’t quit until some, if not all, of the truth is out.
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