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The Cadaver's Ball
 
 
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The Cadaver's Ball [Mass Market Paperback]

Charles Atkins (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

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Book Description

August 2006
There are times when a trusted “friend” is so filled with hatred that he will do anything possible to ruin the other. Ed, Peter, and Beth had been friends through medical school. At the Cadaver’s Ball, the somewhat ghoulish-named celebration that is the closest thing to a senior prom the hardworking medical students have, Ed confidently presents Beth with an engagement ring. She reluctantly has to tell him that she has already agreed to marry Peter---and Ed’s life explodes.

From then on, Ed’s main goal is to make Beth realize she made the wrong choice---but fate intervenes. A car crash takes her life and that of the baby she and Peter had been expecting. Peter was the one driving, and the accident comes close to wrecking his own life irretrievably.

Beth’s death torches Ed’s blazing hatred of Peter and he builds a complex and terrible program to destroy Peter. Peter doesn’t suspect the cause of his growing difficulties until he becomes a suspect in the death of a patient. He must find a way to reclaim his life---if it is not already too late.

In this riveting psychological thriller, Charles Atkins demonstrates his rare skill for creating passionate characters with a range of motivations, from obsession and vengeance to self-preservation.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Weak characterizations and rampant implausibilities undermine this psychological thriller from Atkins (Risk Factor). Sociopathic medical student Ed Tyson vows revenge after Beth, a gorgeous fellow med student, spurns him for his academic rival, Peter Grainger, whom she marries. More than a decade later, Tyson is dean of dean of a prestigious Manhattan med school and has gotten Grainger a teaching position at that institution, soon after the latter survives a car accident that claims Beth's life. Using Ann Walsh, an attractive, mentally fragile young student who resembles Beth, as a pawn, Tyson devises a sadistic scheme intended to convict Grainger of murder and worse. Ann just happens to be the estranged daughter of a burned-out writer who just happens to be the former lover of the female detective assigned to investigate the murder meant to be pinned on Grainger. Tyson's simplistic motivations and the absence of a closing twist make this a routine effort at best.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

There's plotting, and then there's plotting. Atkins' third mystery, billed as "A Novel of Revenge," puts the demonically deft plotting of a jealous rival center stage. And, while this schemer is pathological, he is entirely different from the obsessive loners who often hunt revenge in mystery fiction. This man is a psychiatrist, an old friend of another psychiatrist whom he victimizes; he is dangerous because he knows how to pull psychological chains, doubly dangerous because he truly is the least likely suspect. The victim, psychiatrist Peter Grainger, has suffered the loss of his wife in a car accident. The loss is compounded by the mystery of his own psychology--he can't remember why he crashed the car into a wall. His oldest friend is also traumatized, since he was a long-ago suitor of Peter's wife. Atkins' familiarity with psychiatry (he's a practicing psychiatrist and member of the clinical faculty at Yale) is evident throughout. A very skillful chiller. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 342 pages
  • Publisher: Leisure Books (August 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0843957573
  • ISBN-13: 978-0843957570
  • Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.2 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,272,732 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Charles Atkins is a board-certified psychiatrist and author. His mysteries and thrillers explore complex psychological subjects and the darker side of human nature. His non-fiction books on Bipolar Disorder and Alzheimer's are practical resources for families and mental-health consumers. In addition to books, Dr. Atkins has published hundreds of short stories, essays and columns in a wide variety of newspapers, magazines and journals. He has served as a consultant to the Reader's Digest Medical Breakthrough series and is on the clinical faculty at Yale University School of Medicine.

 

Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
5 star:
 (4)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
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2 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars fabulous psychological thriller, October 4, 2005
This review is from: The Cadaver's Ball (Hardcover)
In 1991, Ed Tyson proposes to Beth, who apologetically says no. Instead she marries another medical student Peter Grainger. Ed vows that one day Beth will be his at any cost as he thinks of his father the "Judge" saying the " end justifies the mean".

In 2004, Peter, now a psychiatrist, struggles with the accident that killed Beth and their unborn child. He currently works as the medical director for the University Hospital Mental Health Clinic, a job he got because of his pal Ed, Dean at the school. As a favor to Ed, he currently is seeing a twenty-two years old coed Ann Walsh who looks just like Beth. Ann apparently cut her wrists following a discussion with her drunken father renowned writer Carter Walsh. Soon other incidents each more dangerous than the previous occur with Peter wondering if Ed is setting him up for some reason or he is just going insane. Police Detective Nicole Sullivan, whose daughter remains traumatized from being molested by an uncle, looks into the strange happenings at the University Hospital Medical School.

THE CADAVER'S BALL is a fabulous psychological thriller starring a person at his most vulnerable as he still grieves deeply his loss; even his son cannot help Peter recover. Interestingly the manipulations of the twisted Ed are what snap a teetering Peter back to life. Though flashbacks by Peter to happier times add depth on the other hand Ed reflecting back to his childhood seems out of place although that provides some understanding as to his Bushian philosophy of the end always justifies the means.

Harriet Klausner
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars review, October 19, 2005
By 
Lauren Baratz-Logsted (Danbury, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Cadaver's Ball (Hardcover)
I reviewed Dr. Atkins' first two novels for Publishers Weekly (The Portrait; Risk Factor) and only wish I was working for them now so I could review this one as well, because this psycho-medical novel of revenge ranks right up there with his earlier works and belongs on the shelf of any reader who has ever enjoyed the work of Robin Cook or Michael Palmer.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't Put It Down, October 12, 2005
This review is from: The Cadaver's Ball (Hardcover)
This is an excellent psychological thriller. It combined a mystery that kept me turning the pages and it led me into a labyrinth of twisted characters who were by turns fascinating, horrible, pitiful, charming and wholly believable. The villian, if he is a villian, was clearly deluded and evil, but he was also appealing -- a broken-hearted genius who took a tragic turn. The hero, if he is the hero, is also sympathetic, as well as charming and attractive. At the same time, his inability to come to turns with his own inner demons make him frustrating and not always likable. I loved the way the whole thing came together in the end and I especially liked the touches of South American shamanic medicine. Did what I think happened at the end really happen at all? I don't even mind that I'm not sure. Highly recommended.
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psych unit
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Ann Walsh, Peter Grainger, Carter Walsh, Michael Grainger, Jason Walsh, Garden School, Keith Taylor, Detective Sullivan, Nicole Sullivan, University Hospital, Park South, New York, Gretchen Becker, Boris Singer, Felicia Jones, Goddard Fellowship, Nicole Luria, Park Slope, The Jersey Boy
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