Lie Still: A Novel of Suspense - Hardcover

Farris, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060505540 ISBN 13: 9780060505547

Publisher: William Morrow, 2003

Synopsis

A prominent physician debuts as a gifted storyteller in Lie Still, a dazzlingly suspenseful and compulsively readable trip through the dark underbelly of the OR -- where reputations, careers, and lives are on the line.

In a sleepy, small-town Arizona hospital, a thirteen-year-old boy lies in a coma after inexplicably suffering a cardiac arrest. His doctors are perplexed. Although emotionally disturbed Henry Rojelio was a frequent visitor to the emergency room -- often for bouts of asthma, but usually just for attention -- no one ever anticipated a battle with death.

Surgical resident Malcolm Ishmail began his medical career months before at a busy Phoenix hospital -- a far cry from the small ER deep in the silent heart of the desert, where Henry Rojelio lies. There, Malcolm fell into a secret, exhausting affair with one of his professors, Dr. Mimi Lyle, a beautiful, charismatic brain surgeon who had subtle difficulties in the operating room. In a moment of weakness "Dreamy Mimi" confessed to him her failings as a neurosurgeon; Malcolm reported her to his superiors . . . and promptly lost his job.

Now, miles away from Phoenix, Dr. Ishmail struggles to save his young asthmatic patient's life and his future as a surgeon. And with little time and few clues to the cause of Henry Rojelio's sudden collapse, the impressionable doctor wonders whether his former lover may have exacted a disturbing revenge.Rich in medical detail and written with stylish, razor-sharp action and dialogue, Lie Still is a gripping, emotional drama of human failings and devastating consequences that marks the debut of a remarkable new voice.

About this title

About the Author:

David Farris, now a pediatric anesthesiologist, has spent more than twenty years practicing obstetrics, emergency medicine, pediatric critical care, and anesthesia for high-acuity surgery. He received his medical degree from the University of California, San Diego. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his physician-wife and their two sons, and devotes his practice primarily to infants' and children's heart surgery.

From Publishers Weekly:

Pediatric anesthesiologist Farris's debut is as sharp as a scalpel, a gripping, well-crafted novel of medical suspense offering more than the adrenaline rush of constant emergency room disasters. Surgery resident Malcolm Ishmail is working the ER in Glory, Ariz., when his 13-year-old asthma patient, Henry Rojelio, goes from amiably talkative one minute to comatose the next. Seven years later, Malcolm, now an "itinerant physician" working in a string of Nebraska cow towns, reflects on his disgrace. His affair with the attending physician in Glory, brain surgeon Mimi Lyle ("she was tall, classically beautiful, and, from my testosterone-hardened viewpoint, undeniably sexy"), was a serious mistake. Despite rumors of incompetence, Mimi is considered at the top of her profession, so Malcolm watches with mounting horror as she botches one operation after another. After reporting her to hospital authorities, he finds himself ousted from his residency, relegated to a succession of smalltown emergency rooms in the hinterlands and eventually threatened with criminal prosecution. Slowly he begins to piece together the succession of events that have landed him in purgatory, only to realize that the vengeance-seeking Mimi lies at the center of the mystery. But there's still one more lesson to be learned: Mimi's better with a pistol than she is with a scalpel.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060505540
• ISBN 13: 9780060505547
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384