Natural Causes
A Novel
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
“Reinvents the medical thriller.”—Library Journal
Dr. Sarah Baldwin races to a Boston hospital with a young woman whose normal labor has suddenly become a matter of life and death. As she struggles to save both mother and baby, she doesn't know that two other women have already died under horrifying identical circumstances. And so begins Sarah's own nightmare, as she learns that the prenatal herbal vitamins she prescribed are the only thing these women have in common.
Soon Sarah is fighting to save her career, her reputation—her life. For she's certain there must be some unknown factor linking these women, and as she gets closer to the truth, it becomes clear that someone will do anything—even murder—to keep a devastating secret.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The latest medical thriller by physician Palmer ( Extreme Measures ) is timely and diverting. Dr. Sarah Baldwin is a fast-track OB/GYN resident at the Medical Center of Boston (aka ``Crunchy Granola General''), a hospital which seems ideally suited to her holistic healing background. When one of her patients is stricken with sudden, almost unstoppable bleeding, Sarah saves her life with a combination of acupuncture and meditation techniques, briefly becoming a heroine. Then, it turns out that this patient and two others who died under similar circumstances were all taking a natural herbal vitamin supplement Sarah had prescribed. The young resident soon finds herself pitted against several powerful interests, including an HMO poised to take over the struggling hospital. With the help of an attractive if inexperienced lawyer, a dedicated investigator for the Centers for Disease Control and the head of MCB's department of internal medicine, Sarah tries to avert the threats to her career and, as later becomes clear, to her life. Natural Causes is a page-turner despite more villains than any plot requires, and a conclusion that, like the Energizer Bunny, keeps on going and going, this is an entertaining novel with some surprise moments.
