Brain Dead [Paperback]

Eileen Dreyer (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Harper Collins; Book Club (BCE/BOMC) edition (January 1, 1997)
• ASIN: B000OEV3E4
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Award-winning, bestselling author Eileen Dreyer is actually evil twins. known as Kathleen Korbel to her Silhouette readers, she has published twenty-three books for Silhouette since 1986 and, under her own name(Eileen Dreyer), eight suspense novels and ten short stories. She came to publishing from the world of trauma nursing, which taught her some very important lessons, the most important being "don't sweat the small stuff," or, as her family puts it, "come see me when you get hit by a bus."

Eileen won her first publishing award in 1987, being named the best new Contemporary Romance Author by Romantic Times. Since then she has garnered not only a prestigious Anthony Award nomination for mystery, but five Rita Awards from the Romance Writers of America, which garnered her a place as only the fourth member in the RWA Hall of Fame.

Eileen is a voracious reader--of everything--who started writing at ten, when she ran out of Nancy Drews. She writes in two genres, because she believes in the message of both: hope and justice.(well, and because she hasn't finished that big fantasy yet)You can figure out which is which.

A frequent speaker at writer's conferences and universities all across the country, Eileen is a member not only of Romance Writers of America, but Novelists, Inc, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and, just in case things go wrong, Emergency Nurses Association. She has also assumed the mantle of unofficial mascot for the International Association of Forensic Nurses, a new forensic subspecialty that, amazingly enough, has begun to show up in her work.

A lifelong resident of St. Louis, Missouri, Eileen has been married for thirty-two years to husband Rick, and has two children. She also has animals but refuses to expose them to the glare of the limelight. An addicted traveler, she has sung in some of the best Irish pubs in the world, and enjoys the kind of hands-on book research that lets her salve an insatiable curiosity. She counts film producers, police detectives and Olympic athletes as some of her sources and friends.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good book, too long, November 1, 1998

By 

Frank (Stockton CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brain Dead (Mass Market Paperback)

I agree with the other two reviews (not counting the 5-star ad which is the first "review," with such nuggets as "A reader would have to be BRAIN DEAD not to enjoy this tale").
This is a good hospital suspense book. Several times the protagonist Timmie will reach a conclusion and forget to share that with the reader. And the secondary characters do blur into each other.
The major fault I found with the book is its length -- 497 pages!! In reaching this length, the author throws in too much repetition of dialogue, reflection, and plot. The author really does not have to repeat something 10 times to have the reader get the point. This would have been a much better book at about 350 pages.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting tale, June 19, 2002

By 

Carol A. Strickland (NC, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Brain Dead (Mass Market Paperback)

The Alzheimers angle makes this book special, but the mystery seems to get side-tracked at times. The sudden realization at the end seems rather obvious to the reader, and indeed seems to have been how the book led us throughout most of the narrative. Were we suposed to have been surprised?

There are some episodes and characters whose potential fall through, leaving a sense of a hole (the ex-hubby, the car chase -- why?). Though they're there to throw us off the real track, there still needs to be more explanation for why they happened, why they were needed.

Yes, the nurse talk got too thick at times but it was fascinating all the same (I love the term "gomer"), and Timmie's often uncaring attitude towards her patients was off-putting. This might be just layering of character, but I wanted to like Timmie. She was caring but uncaring, and she knew a little too much about everything. But her situation was one that gripped me, and the relationship between her father and her was a fascinating one to explore.

Her name, though: Timothy Leary-Parker. It brought me out of the story every time it was mentioned, even just as "Timmie." Too much, too cute.

Good writing otherwise, and like I said, the Alzheimers angle put quite a fascinating spin on the whole thing.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars not one of her best, September 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Brain Dead (Mass Market Paperback)

As an Eileen Dreyer fan, I was sadly disappointed with this book. The rapid, choppy, hospital slang was hard to read. Timmie was not a very sympathetic character, and the other characters were so alike I had a hard time keeping straight who was who.