A Paper Mask

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A nailbiting thriller in the tradition of "Ripley's Game". Hospital orderly Matthew Harris is every bit as smart as the junior doctors he works alongside. He's also trapped, bored, ambitious and ruthless. When a medical intern dies, Matthew assumes his identity and takes the dead man's next job, on the far side of the country, as a junior Emergency Room physician. As the deception starts to unravel,  the young nurse who falls for him is the one person standing between the newly-minted bogus doctor and the exposure of his lethal charade.
 
"Newcomer of the year. .... with complete believability the plot keeps twisting right up to the final words"   Time magazine            
 
"First Rate... Fast paced and entertaining... Great technical panache" - Newsweek
 
"John Collee has a masterful hand at narrative and a fast sure pro style... His work is clear, artfully unaddorned, and paced like a race hose"  - News Day

In this relentless "medical chiller," the author of Kingsley's Touch exploits the notion that "we're all pretending to be more competent than we actually are." Matthew Harris, bored with life as a London hospital orderly, takes on the identity of the recently deceased Dr. Simon Hennessy; with little more than the expired doctor's resume to carry him, he successfully interviews for an emergency-room position in distant Bristol. Only the unwitting assistance of a more-than-capable nurse enables the bogus Dr. Hennessey to maintain his gruesome charade through hair-raising emergency-room sessions. Reck less lies piled on well-calculated ones set the charlatan on a careening course that forces him to take more desperate action. The author's experience as a medical practitioner supplies a wealth of knowledgeable detail and adds a sense of hor rifying possibility to this gripping account of twisted hospital procedures. Literary Guild alternate.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.