The Good Nurse
A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder
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4.2 • 517 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
The mesmerizing basis of the movie starring Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain—a “stunning book...that should and does bring to mind In Cold Blood”—takes you inside the mind of America's most prolific serial killer, whose 16-year long "nursing" career left as many as 400 dead. (New York Times)
Edgar Award Nomination, Mystery Writers of America
BBC (Top Ten Books of the Year)
“The best books I read this year” (top ten books, EW)
—Stephen King
“The Best Journalism of the Year.".
—The Daily Beast
“The most terrifying book published this year. It is also one of the most thoughtful...call it literary true crime...”
—Kirkus Reviews ("Best Books of the year")
After his December 2003 arrest, registered nurse Charlie Cullen was quickly dubbed "The Angel of Death" by the media. But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favorite son, a husband and beloved father, a best friend and a celebrated caregiver. Implicated in the deaths of as perhaps as many as 400 patients, he was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history.
When, in March of 2006, Charles Cullen was marched from his final sentencing in an Allentown, Pennsylvania, courthouse into a waiting police van, it seemed certain that the chilling secrets of his life, career, and capture would disappear with him. Now, in a riveting piece of investigative journalism nearly ten years in the making, Charles Graeber gives us the unbelievable true story.
Based on hundreds of pages of previously unseen police records, wire-tap recordings and videotapes and interviews with whistleblowers and confidential informants, and years of exclusive jailhouse conversations with Cullen himself, the homicide detectives who worked against the clock and administrators to try and finally crack the code on Cullen’s crimes, and Cullen’s fellow nurse Amy, an overworked single mom asked to choose between protecting her friend Charlie and stopping a potential serial killer, THE GOOD NURSE weaves an urgent and terrifying tale of madness, humanity and heroism.
Cullen's murderous career in the world's most trusted profession spanned sixteen years and nine hospitals. Time and again he was fired or allowed to resign. But Cullen continued to work and kill, shielded by a hospital system that, by accident or design, successfully protected the institution while failing to protect patients. THE GOOD NURSE is a searing indictment of a crushing and dehumanizing for-profit medical system, and an inspiring human story of the previously unknown individuals who chose to risk their jobs and lives to do the right thing. Mesmerizing and irresistibly paced, this book will make you look at hospitals and the people who work in them in an entirely different way.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Learn how hospital bureaucracy allowed a nurse to quietly murder hundreds of patients. Charles Graeber’s chilling true-crime book draws us into the life of Charlie Cullen, a young man starved for love and attention. Over 16 years, Cullen left a trail of suspicious patient deaths in his wake, but a series of hospital administrations fearful of litigation unwittingly helped him get away with it, and a desperate shortage of trained nurses meant he kept getting hired. Eventually, a task force of determined cops—plus one of Charlie’s fellow nurses—decide to stop this prolific serial killer. Narrator Will Collyer gives us a frightening peek into Cullen’s psyche and effectively delivers the investigators’ tense dialogue exchanges. The Good Nurse, which has been adapted into a movie starring Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain, is an extremely unsettling portrait of an unusual criminal.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Taking advantage of his exclusive access to serial killer Charles Cullen, journalist Graeber makes the most of the dramatic story of a nurse who began killing patients in 1991, and who eluded prosecution for over a decade. Experts estimate that he may have murdered up to 300 people before his arrest in 2003. Without excusing or condoning Cullen's crimes, the author presents a picture of the killer's horrific childhood, which may provide an explanation for his descent into violence a journey that began with animal cruelty and emotional withdrawal from his increasingly frightened wife. Cullen began tampering with IV bags at St. Barnabas Hospital in New Jersey, and patients on the road to recovery, or who were at least stable, started dropping like flies. Incredibly, Cullen was able to move from one nursing job to another even after being forced out of employment because of suspicions that he was responsible for the deaths. Graeber doesn't pull punches his description of the effects of insulin poisoning are chilling, and he needn't resort to hyperbole to damn the hospital administrators who failed to take it upon themselves to stop Cullen from claiming more lives. A deeply unsettling addition to the true crime genre.
Customer Reviews
Engrossing and completely terrifying
No clear motive. No defined target group. No compulsion other than a random decision being made to kill somebody. Possibly up to 400 somebodies. But even more terrifying is that he moved from hospital to hospital, one hunting ground to the next. For 17 years.
The Good Nurse
By boysmumas
As a Certified Nurse Practitioner of 37 years, I find this story so shocking. It's hard to comprehend that a nurse in my medical field could be guilty of such horrendous acts. I can remember working 16-18 hours in CCU to save one patient, then going home and worrying about what I could have done better. This guy was a monster and should not be called a nurse.
Stunning
Very well written. So many brave people stepped forward to catch him!