Lie Still
By David Farris

    Malcolm Ishmail is an "itinerant physician" working in a string of Nebraska cow town emergency rooms. Thirteen-year-old Henry Rojelio, an asthma patient and frequent visitor to the Emergency Room, suddenly goes into cardiac arrest--for no apparent reason. Malcolm manages to resuscitate him, but Henry remains in a deep coma, permanently brain damaged. An emergency room nurse, whom he thought had a mutual attraction to him, and that he did have a sexual encounter with, has reported to the hospital administration that he is grossly incompetent and was at fault in Henry's case. He loses his job there, and may be looking at criminal charges. The nurse, Robin, has disappeared, and he may even be facing charges for her disappearance.

     He reflects on his disgrace after having been ousted from his residency in Glory, Arizona seven years earlier. As he tries to figure out what happened, Malcolm's secret exhausting affair with the brain surgeon, Mimi Lyle, in Phoenix, Arizona begins to looks like it may have been cause for her to seek revenge. He had watched with mounting horror as Mimi's serious errors in judgment caused irreversible consequences to her patients in one operation after another, leaving them dead or permanently damaged. Following his conscience, Malcolm reports her incompetence to the hospital board. He is inexplicably removed from his residency. His applications to other hospitals are turned down. Slowly, he begins to piece together the succession of events that have landed him in purgatory. Is Mimi capable of plotting his downfall like this? What happened to Robin, and how does she figure in?

     David Farris has made a stunning debut with this sharp, classy medical thriller. This gifted storyteller has great style, and is a master at characterization and plotting. Don't start this book until you have time to read it all, because it's a can't-put-down, adrenaline rush story. We'll watch for more from this talented author.