Medical Mafia

Rating:
Summary: THE HORROR OF LEGITIMATE MURDER
Review: Although entertaining, this is a poignant, biting, book which goes into the horrors which happen when doctors become arrogant. The unlikeable Trevellian, liked by patients because of his slimy manner, is obviously difficult to get rid of despite evidence he is incompetant.
One can almost forgive Dr.Laxton, the author's principal character, for his sexual exploits with the wife of the man he's trying to discipline.
Another character in the book, Aysgarth, is almost as bad as Trevellian, but in a different way, and his come-uppance is through his strange sexual practices.
Laxton seems bound "upstairs" and one wonders if he isn't going to the Clinton Administration, but the author has been careful to keep the book "fiction." Whatever Hepworth says the parts about Canada are not fiction and the mess predicted in the book is here now. He mentions one or two Canadian politicians which shows he knows a bit too much about it all.
My sister, who lives in Memphis, tells me the descriptions of the south are very much the way it is and the bit about the police chasing a sex club while nurses are being murdered is quite possible.
Dickens wrote about the way things were in his time. Hepworth writes about the way things are in his time. If the author didn't have a sense of humour in all this I'd feel ill. It's a page turner all right.

Rating:
Summary: ENTERTAINED THEN SHATTERED
Review: I found this book a great story and the author has a great sense of humor. His characters were real and I felt sorry for Laxton, almost a sort of Elmer Gantry figure.There was one charcter - Aysgarth - who I had mixed feelings about. He seemed to be a business man gone wrong. As the story unfolds and the characters come together to try to help Laxton through his problem, I suddenly realised that this book was all really true and I'd been fooled into enjoying a story which, when I began to believe it, shattered me. I realized too that much of it was set in Southern California and began to recognize where the author was talking about. The ending of the book left me hope anyway. I think we need more literature of this kind because the messages in the book stay with you and motivate you to try to catch the kinds of things that were happening to people in the book. Today we need to be especially careful how we are treated by others, and I believe the Mafia can get into anything.