Customer Reviews

First Cut

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Number One: I DON'T watch E.R. Number Two: I don't read medical thrillers. So I would never have chosen this book, given its cover, if a friend hadn't loaned it to me. I'm glad she did, because it's an excellent mystery. The characters are interesting and well-developed, the picture of life in a New York emergency room is extremely well-done, and the novel has good old-fashioned she's-read-her-Agatha-Christie plotting. I read a lot of interesting-but-not-excellent mysteries because I like their protagonists, their locations, their style. I'm a sucker for strong women protagonists, interesting characters, lots of local color--but all too often the plotting is banal, the clues obvious, the suspense minimal. Robinson does not demonstrate these flaws; her craft is excellent. I also read a goodly number of (borrowed) popular thrillers, which are usually competently written but too often full of gimmicks, gratuitous sex and violence, and stock characters. The reader is dragged through the book at roller-coaster speed but at the end doesn't really care about the characters or the issues presented. FIRST CUT offers characters to care about and issues to ponder as well as a good read.

A book with twists and turns, that will literally make you insane. Definately, very well written, being an ER fanatic or not, this book cannot go unread!

I chose First Cut because it was a Literary Guild Selection. It turned out to be a disappointing choice for me. The author is obviously knowledgable about hospitals and medical terminology, but it was overdone and overwritten. The pace was frantic and I doubt any human could realistically continue to function as our protagonist, Ev, did in thise book. She is a resident who is a combination flawless physician, marvelous teacher, excellent detective, and sexually appealing to all men in this book. That is just too much woman for me. I began skimming about l/3 way through this tome and was relieved to finish. The lengthly explanation by our heroine of how, why and by whom the crimes were committed was just more (pun intended) overkill.

Can't put down the book and it gets exciting every chapter. I'm looking forward to more books of Ms. Robinson.

A book I could live without. Writing and phases were very amateurish. A few phrases that should have been explained weren't. I kept wondering why I was even trying to finish the book. It was like a busy design with too much disassociated action going on and never quite tieing in together.

Before I ever heard of Kathy Reichs and Patricia Cornwell, I was a fan of Leah Ruth Robinson's medical thrillers. The series' hero, Dr Evelyn Suthcliffe, is a strong and believable character. It was worth searching for a First Editon.

Blood Run Unnatural Causes

This one started out OK, but I gave up after about 70 pages. I had a hard time following this book because there was just so much going on that had little or nothing to do with the main storyline. I became bored with this story and gave up. I may try to read this author again if I can find her books at a used bookstore.

An amazingly good medical thriller. I love a heroine like Ev...strong, sexy, funny. I highly recommend the first novel in the series, Blood Run.

Building on her career as an EMT in New York, Robinson combines the organized chaos of a busy Emergency Room with the terror of a serial killer stalking, raping and killing women. Dr. Ev Sutcliffe sees three of her friends killed by the "Baby Doll" killer (named for his propensity to leave behind baby dolls). She gets closer and closer to the killer, realizing that the killer knows who she is. The ending has no deus ex machina, only a superb denouement which brings together all the hints to the only logical conclusion, even though it's the one no one would anticipate. As in Blood Run, Robinson's first book, the medical terminology and facts are impeccable. The action is fast and there's even love, of many kinds

The Babydoll Killer" is terrorizing Manhattan's elite upper West Side with his brutal rapes and
murders, always leaving behind a child's doll. Almost no one survives contact with this demon.
Dr. Evelyn Sutcliffe apparently is a rare individual in the city in that she has survived an encounter
with the serial rapist-killer. However, the madman has affected Evelyn in other ways also that are
not always visible. The latest victim is a friend and Evelyn decides to investigate her murder
Helping Evelyn on the case is a medical student, Lisa Chiu. However, instead of identifying a
maniac, Lisa, holding a doll, is viciously murdered in her apartment in the physicians' living sector.....
The incidents appear to all be tied to the hospital, making everyone a suspect. This only inflames
Evelyn and pushes her to dig deeper into identifying the killer. However, if the assailant is part of
the staff, than he may be watching Evelyn in order to make her his next victim.
.....First Cut is a very good medical thriller that provides the reader with interesting glimpses into the
lives, loves, worries, and issues that the participants in a teaching hospital constantly contend with
as medical knowledge and training are pursued. Though the novel tries to deal with too many
sub-plots and contains too many secondary characters that add nothing, Leah Ruth Robinson
provides readers with a first-rate medical thriller that will more than satiate fans of the sub-genre.

.....Harriet Klausner