The Doctor and the Dead Man's Chest [Hardcover]

Robin Hathaway (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 10, 2001

In Dr. Andrew Fenimores, third adventure, a patients call leads to more detective work than medical care. Lydia Ashley, owner of a large farm in southern New Jersey, is being systematically harassed by someone who wants her land. When Dr. Fenimore goes to stop the pranks, he learns that a hidden treasure is at the root of all the evil deeds.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set in southern New Jersey's farmlands, Hathaway's (The Doctor Digs a Grave) third Dr. Fenimore mystery offers a long and rambling adventure with few surprises. While going to see some wetlands property he's unexpectedly inherited, the physician/investigator meets an elderly patient, Lydia Ashley, who's been beset by pranks and other more serious threats since refusing to sell her ancestral farm to a purported landfill company. In a nod to Robert Louis Stevenson (whose Treasure Island is evoked in the awkward title), the author introduces local lore about treasure maps and rumors of buried plunder, predictably all centered on Mrs. Ashley's decrepit estate. Fenimore encounters hosts of possible suspects, including disagreeable farmhands, a grouchy librarian and a nervous headmaster needing more playing fields for his boys. These and other suspicious characters meet at assorted social events, making it easy to compare their personalities and motives. Much of their conversation is clich‚d and uninteresting, and Fenimore, like the reader, is glad when these parties are over. Minor violence occurs when the doctor's assistant sleuth, nurse Doyle, is briefly kidnapped and roughed up, but most of the story is bland, with many short chapters and an untaxing plot. Eventually, the scene shifts to the Philadelphia suburbs, home to some of the more socially prominent suspects. An implausibly happy epilogue features a wedding and even some Christmas caroling among the Jersey mudflats. Agent, Laura Langlie.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Like a contemporary version of TV's Dr. Marcus Welby, Philadelphia physician Andrew Fenimore still makes house calls for his patients, mostly elderly women. This third installment of the Fenimore series finds the doctor traveling to southern New Jersey to inspect some swampland left to him by a former patient. When Fenimore and his teenage helper, Horatio, are stymied by the impenetrable swamp, they instead visit another of the doctor's patients, Lydia Ashcroft. There they discover that, through a series of nasty pranks, someone is trying to scare Ashcroft into selling her lovely property. Worried about his patient's heart condition, Fenimore investigates the increasingly dangerous pranks, assisted by his no-nonsense nurse, Mrs. Doyle. When Doyle, who was staying with Ashcroft is kidnapped, the stakes are raised. Don't give this to anyone looking for a medical thriller (there is almost no medicine in the story), but it works just fine as a pleasant, lightweight cozy with some interesting historical tidbits about South Jersey. Jenny McLarin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; lst ed edition (November 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312269560
• ISBN-13: 978-0312269562
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,374,148 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

BIO: Robin Hathaway

Robin Hathaway began writing at fifty and collected rejection slips until she was sixty, when her novel THE DOCTOR DIGS A GRAVE won the St. Martin's Malice Domestic prize, and later an Agatha Award. She now has two series both featuring doctor sleuths. Dr. Andrew Fenimore is a Philadelphia cardiologist who practices solo and still makes house calls. Jo Banks is a young woman doctor who provides healthcare to motel residents and makes her motel calls on a motorcycle. SLEIGHT OF HAND, her most recent in this series, won the 2009 David Award. Robin is not a doctor, but her husband is a cardiologist and she uses him shamelessly as her #1 medical resource. Right now Robin is taking a break from her two series to work on a spy novel set at Cape May during WWII. www.RobinHathaway.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars No blood or violence just a pleasant read., September 12, 2009

By 

Gobi55 (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Doctor and the Dead Man's Chest (Hardcover)

I have now read three in this series. They are more escapist novel than mystery. I like the author's style of writing. The characters are charming. If you are a hardcore mystery reader this won't be the book for you.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Engaging amateur sleuth, October 24, 2001

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Doctor and the Dead Man's Chest (Hardcover)

A deceased patient, Reebesther Smith, bequests fifty acres of choice marshland in Southern New Jersey to Dr. Fenimore with specific stipulations on the care of the land in its natural habitat. There is also a pirate's treasure map that provides a path to riches buried on the land.

Dr. Fenimore and his able assistant Rat head south to see what he inherited especially the booty. They stop at the home of another patient Lynn Ashley, who is the recipient of some nasty pranks that are a form of subtle pressure to force the senior citizen to sell her property. Knowing the treasure is not going anywhere Dr. Fenimore begins to investigate who is trying to scare Lynn off her land. To his surprise the list of individuals and corporations that could gain with the purchase of Lynn's acres is large, making it difficult to determine whom the culprit(s) is.

The third Dr. Fenimore tale, THE DOCTOR AND THE DEAD MAN'S CHEST, pays homage to Stevenson's Treasure Island though it is set in New Jersey. The story line is fun due to the strong supporting "good guys" and insightful references to historical tidbits such as brickwork. Bringing most of the potential "bad guys" to one party allows Fenimore easy comparisons, but seems to simple of a solution. Still the trek into the New Jersey wilderness is an engaging diversion for those readers who enjoy a non-metropolitan northeast cozy.

Harriet Klausner

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Ugh!, July 28, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Doctor and the Dead Man's Chest (Hardcover)

This is the third book in this series but the first one I read. It is truly a poorly written book. The characters are not fully developed, the secondary plotline of gang murders is almost entirely ignored, and the main character--the detecting Dr. Fenimore--really doesn't do much of anything but meet his cop buddy for drinks. The author's age is clearly reflected in her prose...much as Lilian Jackson Braun's is in her "Cat Who..." series. One other thing...on page 27, the author describes one of four cars as a "Taurus van." There is no such thing as a Taurus VAN...an insignificant mistake, perhaps, but it shows that the author and her editors don't check facts. With all the excellent mystery writers to choose from, this author is a waste of reading time.