The Deception

Twenty-one-year-old top-ranked tennis player Donna Ditullo is hospitalized as a suicidal manic-depressive, but with the help of an experimental antidepressant, Donna makes a miraculous recovery, until she leaps from a fifth floor, leaving herself comatose and her lawyers baffled. Reprint.

The Deception is a gripping thriller that delves into the complexities and mysteries of both the medical and legal fields. When tennis prodigy Donna DiTullio jumps from a fifth-story balcony in an apparent suicide attempt, many people want answers. What complicates matters is the fact that when she jumps, DiTullio is in the hospital for treatment of manic depression, though she is due to be discharged later that day. It is strange then, that after seeming to recover, the young woman takes a near fatal plunge. How could the doctors have misdiagnosed their patient's mental condition so egregiously? When lawyer Dan Sheridan steps in to sue the hospital he runs headlong into a powerful conflict with the Archdiocese of Boston, which owns it. The story that ensues is a gripping, well paced examination of justice and ethics. Author Barry Reed is a veteran trial lawyer, and his legal acumen is obvious as he leads the reader through this absorbing courtroom drama whose ingenious plot turns will keep the reader riveted until the very last page.