Mortal Remains [Hardcover]

Peter Clement (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 26, 2003

In a small upstate New York town, an idyllic lake yields a ghastly discovery when the skeletal remains of a young woman missing for twenty-seven years are pulled from the icy depths—along with unmistakable evidence of her murder. Suddenly, the long-dormant case of Kelly McShane Braden’s mysterious disappearance is reactivated. And for two devastated men, dark emotions and disturbing secrets will also rise to the surface.

For local coroner Dr. Mark Roper, the murder is more than just a grim interruption of his general practice in sleepy Hampton Junction. Kelly Braden had been a surrogate sister. When the police insist the trail of Kelly’s disappearance is too cold to pick up again, he vows to find the missing pieces of the past that will lead him to a killer. Because that’s what cracks cold cases: “One guy who can’t get it out of his head.”

Yet Mark isn’t the only one with Kelly’s murder on his mind. Dr. Earl Garnet, chief of staff at Buffalo’s St. Paul’s Hospital, was once Kelly’s secret lover . . . and would-be savior. Until his plans to rescue her from an abusive marriage were cut short by her vanishing. Now, as the last person to see Kelly alive, he’s in danger of becoming the prime suspect, unless he can unmask the murderer first.

But neither man knows about the twisted chain of lies and corruption that led to Kelly’s death—or the shocking revelations that were meant to go with her to a watery grave. And the harder they push for answers, the easier they make it for their lethal quarry to zero in on them—and push back with deadly force.



With Mortal Remains, Peter Clement remains in total control of readers’ nerves from the very first page, once more wielding heart-racing suspense and scalpel-sharp terror with a master surgeon’s skill.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this medical mystery, the remains in question are those of Kelly McShane Braden, former lover of series hero Dr. Earl Garnet (Lethal Practice; Death Rounds; The Procedure), chief of the busy emergency room at St. Paul's Hospital in Buffalo, N.Y. Kelly disappeared under mysterious circumstances 27 years ago, and now the discovery of her bones threatens Garnet's personal and professional life. Also involved are physician/coroner Mark Roper and his sheriff friend, Dan Evans, both of whom live in Hampton Junction, a small community in the Adirondacks. Mark takes Kelly's murder personally, as she was his beloved childhood babysitter and a close friend of his physician father. The chief suspect in the original disappearance is Dr. Charles "Chaz" Braden IV, Kelly's husband and son of suave, powerful Dr. Charles Braden III. Mark and Earl join forces in hunting down Kelly's killer, and in a matter of hours, patients begin to turn up dead in hospital beds, and seemingly unrelated civilians perish in violent accidents. Mark narrowly escapes being shot, and Earl is felled by a baffling illness. Veteran thriller readers will diagnose the guilty party quickly enough, though the motive is so complicated most will simply give author Clement the benefit of the doubt and accept his version of events. This is medical suspense, so there's lots of doctor talk: "But the lack of nausea and there being no focal, right-upper-quadrant tenderness means we don't even have to think gallbladder, and with normal urine, it isn't renal. Any history of hypertension, Earl?" Readers who go for this sort of chatter will find the book a compelling read, but those who aren't quite so taken with hospitals and healers might look elsewhere for their thrills.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

PRAISE FOR PETER CLEMENT

Mortal Remains

“Peter Clement’s Mortal Remains is furiously paced and intricately plotted. I really cared about these characters and what happens to them. There is no higher praise I can give to anyone’s writing."
—MICHAEL PALMER

“Written with impressive authority, Peter Clement’s medical thriller Mortal Remains is tautly plotted and packed with panache.”
—JOHN CASE

Critical Condition
“Clement’s twenty years as an emergency physician and family doctor result in novels of stunning suspense grounded by an insider’s view of medical science.”
—The Toronto Star

Mutant
“Steeped in the thriller traditions of John Saul, Dean Koontz, and Stephen King: pulse-quickening action, a sub-plot of good versus evil, smatterings of blood here and there and a hero’s race against certain disaster.”
—Doctor’s Review

The Procedure
“More than a piece of compelling fiction, The Procedure is a cautionary tale . . . An exciting and original story, well told.”
—NELSON DEMILLE

Lethal Practice
“ER meets Agatha Christie as Buffalo doctor Earl Garnet is suspected of murder via a cardiac needle. Heart-pounding suspense, indeed!”
—Entertainment Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (August 26, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345457781
• ISBN-13: 978-0345457783
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,426,308 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An old murder stirs up memories., April 10, 2004

By 

E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mortal Remains (Hardcover)

Peter Clement scores with "Mortal Remains," a crackerjack medical thriller. Dr. Mark Roper is a dedicated country doctor in Hampton Junction, a small town in upstate New York. He is shocked when the body of Kelly McShane is pulled up from a lake, twenty-seven years after she mysteriously disappeared. Kelly used to baby-sit for Mark and he idolized her. It was no secret that she was anxious to leave her abusive husband, Chaz Braden, and there were hints that she had a mysterious lover. Mark decides to investigate Kelly's death, especially since the police regard her murder as a cold case that is unlikely to be solved. Helping Mark with his investigation is Dr. Earl Garnet, who knew Kelly when they were both medical students. As their probe deepens, the two doctors risk becoming the next victims of a murderer who wants to keep old secrets buried.

This story could have been trite in the hands of a lesser writer. Clements uses the "murder victim found many years later" formula skillfully. He develops his characters with care and brings his story to life with vivid descriptions, interesting medical details, and a sharply delineated plot with some surprising twists and turns. Dr. Roper is a sympathetic protagonist, a compassionate and hard-working doctor who has a special relationship with his elderly and isolated patients. His adversaries are complex individuals with hidden motives, and there are plenty of red herrings to keep even the sharpest reader off balance.

If you like medical thrillers with lots of tension, varied characters, a well-developed plot, and a touch of romance, then you will probably find "Mortal Remains" both engrossing and entertaining.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Graphic and Gripping Medical Thriller, November 9, 2003

By 

Eleanor V. Miller (Henderson, NV United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mortal Remains (Hardcover)

Charismatic, compassionate Dr. Earl Garnet, Peter Clement's series hero, has a problem. More than a quarter of a century after his residency days at New York City Hospital, he's solidly established in his chosen profession, living happily in Buffalo with his obstetrician wife, Janet, and their young son...life is good. However, Coroner Mark Roper and Sheriff Dan Evans' sensational discovery of the 'mortal remains' of his fellow student, old friend and former lover, Dr. Kelly McShane Braden, in the murky depths of an upstate lake at Hampton Junction, NY, twenty-seven years after her mysterious disappearance threatens that serene existence and puts his own life in jeopardy once he commits to actively involving himself in Roper's decision to proceed with a thorough investigation into what is now an obvious case of murder. Unhappily married to abusive Dr. Charles 'Chaz' Braden, IV (son of prominent and powerful Dr. Charles Braden, III)at the time of her disappearance, Kelly came to Earl for help in leaving him the same day that she vanished. Although their connection was never established at the time since 'Chaz' was the primary suspect and the case was eventually shelved for lack of evidence, dedicated Dr. Roper...who knew and loved Kelly from his childhood...is now determined to track down her killer, and Garnet somewhat reluctantly volunteers his assistance. Bad mistake! Suddenly felled by a mysterious illness, while Earl fights for his life, Roper doggedly continues to search the past for reasonable answers to present enigmas. He is absolutely convinced that one or both of the Bradens are at the heart of the matter, and once he digs deep enough, he and Dr. Lucy O'Connor, his brilliant and spunky resident assistant, uncover a generation-old cesspool of murder, malpractice and fraud that not only provides ample motivation for Kelly's seemingly inexplicable death (as well as the rapidly mounting death tally at NYCH), but also places them both squarely in harm's way. Once we reach this point in the novel, it's impossible to put the book down until justice is finally served in a genuine nail-biter of a tour de force finale.

Anyone at all familiar with Earl Garnet's previous walks on the wilder, darker side of his profession has already experienced Peter Clement's enormous talent for turning the nuts and bolts of modern medicine's issues and technology into complex, jet-propelled, reader-friendly medical thrillers. What I also thoroughly appreciate is his equal talent for creating protagonists that move and intrigue me. Aside from an exceptionally strong cast of supporting characters, something that I thought was particularily interesting about "Mortal Remains" is that Dr. Clement took the risk of subordinating his well-established series hero in favor of spot-lighting two new, secondary characters: Mark and Lucy. That gamble really worked for me and added a great deal to my enjoyment of this wonderful addition to an extremely solid series.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The mystery's boring but the prose is frightful, May 8, 2008

By 

B. Shuey (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mortal Remains: A Medical Thriller (Mass Market Paperback)

You're supposed to show'em, not tell'em. This is almost purely a tell'em book. The story unfolds not through the action of the characters, but rather through a series of stilted, implausible dialogs in which every twitch of the lips and blink of the eyes somehow reveals the deepest thoughts and feelings of everyone. And not to an omniscient narrator, but rather to the characters themselves. This book is full of psychics and empaths.

To top it off, the writing is truly dreadful: "Even his calls that afternoon to former classmates who'd worked on the digoxin toxicity cases had yielded nothing but exclamations of surprise at his contacting them and no useful recollections about Chaz's or anyone else's competence with the medication." This sentence means "He called around but no one knew anything."

Every page has a sentence like that. In fact, I only finished the novel because I was keen to see the next mangled construction. If you love good writing, don't buy this book.