Care giver, life saver… or cold-blooded killer?

Running away from a past she’d rather forget, Doctor Alison Wilson has moved to a new town to take up the role of Medical Officer at failing hospital St Margaret’s.

Tasked with shaking things up, she quickly learns that things are worse than they initially seem: patient records are in disarray, staff morale is low, and there’s something afoot that she can’t quite put her finger on…

As Alison starts to dig into the hospital’s past, she gradually discovers a trail of lies that runs deeper and darker than she could have ever imagined.

There’s a cold-blooded killer in the hospital. And they’re hiding in plain sight…

I received a review copy from Avon via Netgalley.

Long time ago while I was still a teenager I was making the jump from reading Agatha Christie novels into “proper grown-up books” which is to say I was ready to leave behind Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys and Tintin and start buying crime stories which you didn’t find in the children’s section of our local bookshop. That said, as I draw ever closer to my 50th birthday I still love a Tintin book!

One of the first authors I discovered –  one of the early few that replaced Agatha on my TBR – was Robin Cook. He wrote medical thrillers, most notably Coma, and all his murder mystery stories were set in and around hospitals and featured a wealth of sinister phsyicians or medical staff who could (quite literally) get away with murder on their wards. There are far too few medical and hospital crime stories out there these days so when I saw The Doctor and read the blurb (as above) I was hit with a wave of nostalgia and knew I had to read this book. Boy was I glad I did!

Alison is taking over as a senior administrator in a failing hospital, she is leaving a busy London hospital and moving to a smaller place as she is leaving her broken marriage (after her husband had an affair) and seeking new challenges and a fresh start. Her introduction to the hospital isn’t the best as nobody seems to have known she is arriving, then when she starts trying to suggest changes there is resistance. While a certain amount of pushback is not entirely unexpected for a “new broom” looking to shake up a chaotic/shambolic operation there seems to be something not quite right at St Margaret’s hospital.

We follow Alison as she tries to integrate the new controls and measures which are badly needed to make St Margaret’s a more efficient operation but it is clear something isn’t right. Her meetings are inexplicably cancelled, reports she requests don’t arrive, colleagues are waiting for guidance on issues they brought to her yet Alison isn’t aware of their requests. She is blaming tiredness, mixups and she knows she is turning to a calming glass of wine far too often. These slips are undermining her self-confidence but they are also making her colleagues question her competence.

More alarmingly is the reader knows there is a killer in the hospital. We shadow them as they usher some patients to their deaths. It’s chilling and unsettling. The medical staff at our hospitals aren’t meant to bring death to their charges. Equally chilling is that the killer has their eye on Alison – she’s a threat and is going to be turned into a scapegoat or possibly even a victim.

Annie Payne is serving up a mystery, a thriller and a tense pageturner which I really enjoyed. As I alluded to at the start of my review, there are too few medical or hospital thrillers and I will always lap them up. More like this would be very welcome thank you.

The Doctor was published by Avon Books on 25 May 2023 and can be ordered here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-doctor/annie-payne/9780008562007