Customer Reviews

Ghost Image : A Novel

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ghost Image is a tense and powerful novel which launches Joshua Gilder as the most exciting new novelist since Scott Turow debuted in 1988 with Presumed Innocent. Gilder distinguishes himself from many of today's top suspense writers: He cares deeply about his characters; and so does the reader. In Ghost Image, the shocking revelations are not just arbitrary plot manipulations; the action rushes forward as the reader penetrates the darkest and most painful parts of the human soul. Gilder can create the suspense of a Grisham, but Grisham may not consistently create characters of such potency as those found in Ghost Image. The human relationships are complex, the medical science is exact, and the pace is unrelenting. The book is an innovative medical thriller, but the sharpest scalpel is applied to cutting open the raw fears, ambitions and intimate desires that seethe through these poignant characters in a painful and uncommon love story. Ghost Image is a suspenseful, can't-put-it-down page turner. I read the book in a single all-night sitting, racing to reach the remarkable conclusion before the sun came up. You will love this book, and if you are like me, you will want more. Ghost Image gets my highest rating.

Joshua Gilders first novel, Ghost Image is a psychological thriller set in the world of plastic surgery that moves inexorably from its startling opening episode to its resonant conclusion at an almost breakneck pace.
Jackson Maebry, a rising plastic surgery intern, discovers the night he is called to the ER that the cruelly beaten and burned female patient he is attending is Allie, the girl he has just recently fallen in love with and hopes to marry. When her heart stops he overrides his colleagues, saws her chest open, massages her heart until it beats again. However, having saved her life, subsequent problems come at him with appalling speed. Will her heart still beat for him? Will he and his famous mentor plastic surgeon be able to restore her beauty? Who has done this brutal deed? When he becomes the main suspect desperation takes hold.
Gilder writes with intelligence, wit and fluidity, taking time to allow his characters to ponder the more complicated issues of human frailty, trust, love and loyalty, and to lighten his story of trauma and murder with the informed irreverent banter among medical men.. This is no ordinary whodonit. At one point Allie, confronts Jackson with the facts of her disfigurement, suggesting that he never would have fallen in love with her if shed been disfigured when he met her, drawing the parallel between her condition and his fear of his inheriting his mothers insanity. Gilders writing is deft, clear, highly literate, and he brings to the page an astounding (and sometimes horrifying) amount of information about plastic surgery.
I am not usually a lover of thrillers, but this metaphoric story of both mental and physical disfigurement, its causes and cures, held me captive until the last surprising page.

I am just here to jump on the Joshua Gilder bandwagon. I am so happy to have a new author to read. I love suspense thrillers, but find that most of the books I pick up are so poorly written I can't even finish them. I know it is a cliché to call Ghost Image a "page-turner" but it truly is one!!!! From beginning to end, I could not put this down. The first page grabs you, not with a murder (those come later) but with a scene that immediately gives you that sick-in-the-pit-of-your- stomach and a this-ain't-good event.

The story unfolds against the backdrop of California and the world of plastic surgery, however this will also appeal to those who like the forensic mysteries that are popular now, it is technical, detailed, fascinating. The characters are interesting, flawed and well developed. Some of the secondary characters will be recognizable, but the main ones are truly unique and complicated.

When Plastic surgeon Jackson Maebry is called to attend an emergency, he finds to his horror that the battered and burned young woman is his lover, Allie.A frantic race begins to save her life and to literally piece her back together.After other surgeons have mended her broken bones and skin, Jackson begins to do massive reconstruction on her face, having to peel it back and start from the beginning.He discovers that she'd had facio cranial surgery years before from the almost invisible scars in her bones.This is a story for those readers who enjoy medicine and forensics--sometimes rather gruesome but always compelling reading.

The author, Joshua Gilder will be making an impact upon American Literature for sometime to come if this novel is any kind of example. I found this book to be simply a breath of great pride to read.

He blends realism with fiction, good against evil, and doubters to decision makers into a twirling tale to the struggle of figuring out who is committing atrocities of murder in the book. The writer uses his talents to describe the complicated medical terms and techniques into easy reading even as the situation starts to unravel the dark murder mystery. The author writes in a very smart and adroit manner. The arcade of distinguishing personalities written into the story and well-structured, flavorful text combine in capturing you from the first chapter.

I highly recommend you buy this book and take it with you on a trip. It will make your travel go faster as you wait in lines. The ending will make you feel glad you took the time to read it. This man knows how to think and write is all I can say!

This thriller kept me up late at night - the highest compliment I can pay a book. It provides a unique and fascinating glimpse into the plastic surgeon's art, with graphic descriptions of operations that will curl your toes, at the same time as they keep you turning the page. Gilder ratchets up the psychological tension with his tautly written prose, and provides a convincing cast of suspects to keep you guessing right up until the end. Joshua Gilder knows his stuff, and he knows how to write!

This is an absolutely amazing novel!
First, I'm a plastic surgeon myself and I can tell you that the scenes of the heroine's surgery are absolutely authentic.
Second, I live in San Francisco, and Gilder really captures the beautiful and sometimes weird character of the city.
Finally, I'm a big Raymond Chandler-Ross McDonald fan (OK, I know that dates me, but it's true), and this is one of the few mysteries I read in the ten or so years which I would say belongs in the same exalted category. John D Macdonald is up there too, and a few others. But it's amazing that someone - apparently a first time author - could come along in 2002 and so perfectly capture the feeling and atmosphere of those classics while at the same time giving it a completely modern ring. There were so many times when the writing made me think of Ross Macdonald, the throw-away lines that leave you startle you because they're so succinct and perfect, like when the hospital pathologist remarks over the corpse of the hero's friend,
"Too bad we haven't been able to do anything about the death rate."
"What?" asks the hero, confused.
"The death rate," says the pathologist. "It's still one per person."
Then there are all these Chandler/McDonald-type similes, as when the hero, who feels he's betrayed his lover, remarks that his pleas fell "into the silence between us like worthless coins down an empty well." Then there are just the beautiful descriptive passages, which are extraordinarily expert for a beginning novelist, and the gritty and entirely convincing descriptions of the hero's operations.
Ghost Image is one those rare mysteries these days that is simply a pleasure to read, every line, from beginning to end. Read it and enjoy.

If you like Patricia Cornwall or Kathy Reichs (who gives his book a great blurb, by the way), or even CSI, the TV show, you?re going to love Ghost Image. It?s got all the forensic intrigue, science and medicine, but instead of dead people, the clues are all hidden inside a living patient, and only discovered during an eight hour plastic surgery operation that is so amazingly portrayed you?ve got to read it to believe it. I showed it to a doctor friend of mine, and he said it was very realistic, and with all the surgeons and other specialists the author thanks in his acknowledgements, I guess he did his research very thoroughly. I?ve never read anything like it. Makes one think twice about having plastic surgery oneself, though it all turns out all right in the end ? the surgery that is. I don?t want to give away too much of the plot which has at least two most twists at the end than you?d ever expect, though they don?t leave you feeling cheated, like so many other mysteries. Instead you end with a very satisfying "Aha! Of course that?s what happened!"
Some people might figure it out sooner, but I didn?t until the final two pages. It?s not a "happily ever after" ending, but somehow I felt really uplifted and good in the end, because for all the bad stuff the characters go through, they end with a lot of hope. So, my two cents is, this is a great book. Read it.

This was a very intriguing book. But it was a little predictable, where it was love at first sight and everything was going so well and then tragedy struck, having Jackson's poor Allie beaten and burned struggling for her life.
The detective in the story zooms in on Jackson as a prime suspect. But in the end of the book it doesn't explain why Jackson was the prime suspect besides being Allie's lover. This left me hanging just a little bit in the end.
I loved how Joshua Gilder made the hero so flawed, with many psychological problems, but he shows that he lives life to the fullest and also shows what the world is really like. And this makes you just adore the him.
I enjoyed the many twists and turns the writer decided to take in the book. The way it was written, you couldn't stop reading this book, because it just kept you wanting to know what the final results were going to be.
This book in my opinion was very well written, and I would recommend it to everyone. This book is unlike any other that I have read, and it has become one of my favorites.

Doctor Jackson Maebry is the golden boy of San Francisco Memorial hospital. He is the chief resident in reconstructive surgery and the protégé of Dr. Peter Brandt, the head of the department. At a party given by Dr. Brandt's biotech company Genderm, he meets the beautiful Allie and for both of them it is love at first sight. They have four perfect months together before tragedy strikes.

Jackson is summoned to emergency where a woman beaten and burned almost beyond recognition is struggling to stay alive. At first Jackson doesn't recognize it's Allie on the table and when he does he stays at her side until she wakes from her coma. When she awakens from her comatose state, she doesn't remember anything about the attack. For some reason, the lead detective on the case zooms in on Jackson as the prime suspect. When Jackson starts looking into Allie's past, he comes to a conclusion that sets him on a path that will change his life.

Joshua Gilder's debut novel is an exciting psychological thriller with so many twists and turns that readers will have to read it in one session just to see how everything is finally resolved. The hero is a flawed person with many psychological problems but he lives his life to the fullest, which is only one of the reasons the reader will adore him. Though why he is singled out as the prime suspect besides being the victim's lover is not fully explained, GHOST IMAGE remains a strong tale that is unlike any other novel on the market today.

Harriet Klausner