Diagnosis Murder #5: The Past Tense [Paperback]

Lee Goldberg (Author)

Book Description

Series: Diagnosis Murder | Publication Date: August 2, 2005

Dr. Mark Sloan is startled to discover a dead woman—dressed as a mermaid—washed up on the beach outside his home. Even more bizarre, the autopsy reveals a digital memory card within a capsule inside the body's stomach. The card contains the report of a forty-three-year-old murder in Los Angeles—the first homicide case Mark ever solved, when he was a struggling intern and newlywed father.

When a second body is discovered—a woman who was apparently the victim of an impromptu autopsy in her own kitchen—the good doctor realizes that he must find the connection between the two murders. And perhaps more urgently, the connection to his own past...

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The latest—and arguably the best—original mystery based on the popular Dick Van Dyke TV series..." -- Chicago Tribune, August 7, 2005

From the Back Cover

"What makes it more than just another spinoff is the way Goldberg takes the reader—and his hero, Dr. Mark Sloan—through 40 years of Los Angeles history, a journey that captures the unique flavor of the city so many of us used to call home." —The Chicago Tribune

"Just what the doctor ordered, a sure cure after a rash of blah mysteries. Diagnosis Murder: The Past Tense has more plot twists than a strand of DNA." —Elaine Viets

"With a devilish plot sense, sophisticated humor, and smooth writing style, Lee Goldberg's Diagnosis Murder series never fails to please. He's as good as anyone writing in the genre today." -Donald Bain

"Diagnosis Murder: The Past Tense. Seldom has a title been more appropriate. Lee Goldberg takes the utterly familiar Dr. Mark Sloan and surprises us with heartbreaking glimpses of the past that allow the good doctor to step off the television screen and into a flesh-and-blood reality. Well-plotted and beautifully rendered." —Margaret Maron

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Signet (August 2, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451216148
• ISBN-13: 978-0451216144
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 3.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #931,024 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mark Sloan's own past leads to murder., October 9, 2005

By 

Chadwick H. Saxelid "Bookworm" (Concord, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Diagnosis Murder #5: The Past Tense (Paperback)

Still suffering the emotional and physical after effects from the events in the previous entry, The Waking Nightmare, Dr. Mark Sloan takes a morning walk on the beach outside of his Malibu home...and finds a dead body. The mystery takes an immediate turn to the personal when a strange clue links the murder to the very first homicide case Sloan investigated, back in 1962. Sloan himself narrates the 1962 segment of the story, which is a fine little mystery, and the reader comes away knowing more about what makes the crime solving doctor tick than before. Lee Goldberg (who wrote and produced several seasons of the Diagnosis Murder television series) has added an emotional layer to this mystery that makes it the best in the series to date. Highly recommended.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mark is Haunted by His First Case, August 25, 2005

By 

Mark Baker (Santa Clarita, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Diagnosis Murder #5: The Past Tense (Paperback)

In the middle of a Southern CA rain storm, Mark Sloan finds a dead college student on the beach near his house. With hair died red and dressed in a mermaid costume, things seem weird. A vile is found inside her that contains pictures from Mark Sloan's very first case.

In February 1962, during another huge rain storm, a dead woman is brought into the ER. Everyone assumes she drowned during the rain storm, but Mark thinks something fishy is going on. When they find evidence of murder, Mark just can't let it go, even when it puts him at odds with the detective, former friend Harry Trumble. Can an inexperienced doctor solve the crime? Even more intriguing, what does this 40+ year old murder case have to do with the present murder?

This book is ingenious. About half of it is set in the past and half set in the present. Really, you get two mysteries for the price of one as we watch Mark solve both cases. Yet they interact in a way I never saw coming. Seeing glimpses of Mark's past was enlightening as well. I really felt like I was back in 1962 for those scenes. Once again, Lee brings events from the series into the book making me wish I'd seen more of the earlier episodes.

These books are fast becoming one of my favorite series around. If you were a fan of the show, you owe it to yourself to pick up this great continuation. Even if you've never seen the series, the plots will pull you in and make you start looking for the reruns. Is the next one out yet?

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars exciting and complicated mystery, August 3, 2005

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Diagnosis Murder #5: The Past Tense (Paperback)

In Los Angeles, rain has made the area a flood stricken mud hole and when Dr. Mark Sloan walks along the beach he is shocked to find a dead woman in a mermaid's costume near his home. When he goes to work at Community General Hospital, his friend and medical examiner Dr Amanda Bentley tells him that the victim was injected with a drug to induce paralysis and in her stomach was a memory card.

When they get it developed, it is a picture of a storm that happened in 1962 forty-three years ago in the same month. The killer is sending Mark a message because that storm began the events that led to Mark solving his first homicide. Five student nurses were killed because they were involved in a blackmail scheme headed by a doctor who was also murdered. The woman who was killed turns out to be the daughter of a patient he treated the night it all began in 1962. Mark is determined to find the killer who seems to enjoy taunting him even if it means putting his own life in danger.

Lee Goldberg is a very visual writer so each scene comes alive in the mind of the reader, almost as of this were actually watching an episode of the television show. The author is great at creating characters that are three dimensional and life like and he sets up the who-done-in such a way so that almost anyone could be the killer. Readers will thoroughly enjoy this very exciting and complicated mystery.

Harriet Klausner