Customer Reviews

Mortal Remains: A Medical Thriller

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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.

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.

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.

Sheriff Dan Evans of Hampton Junction in upstate New York had volunteers dragging the nearby lake for the body of an elderly Alzheimer's patient who disappeared several days ago. They found the bones of a left forearm of a body that has been in the lake a very long time. This leads to the sheriff and Dr. Mark Ruper, the county coroner to dive into the lake to retrieve the body.

When they locate the body, it is obvious that a crime occurred and the forensic team must examine the scene. When they are finally able to bring the skeleton up, they discover it is the body of Dr. Kelly McShane Branden who disappeared twenty-seven year ago. Mark, who has fond memories of Kelly won't rest until her killer is brought to justice. Earl Garnet, who believed at the time that Kelly did a disappearing act to escape her abusive husband, assists the doctor in seeing justice occur. Both men are almost killed because they refuse to let a murderer escape.

Fans of Michael Palmer and Robin Cook must add Peter Clement to their list of writers of exciting medical thrillers. Readers get a real sense of the victim through the eyes of those who cared about her and hope that the doctors will be successful in their quest. The protagonist of this novel is a family doctor who goes the extra mile for his patients, a hero in the truest sense of the word. Readers will love him and hope there will be more medical thrillers starring this special humanitarian.

Harriet Klausner

If you've been plotting the career trajectory of Peter Clement over the course of his last couple of books, you have undoubtedly noticed that he is improving by leaps and bounds. He has never written a bad book, but he seems to have been working toward writing that one novel that would ensconce him firmly upon that 'A' list of writers who don't need to be on a list --- you automatically remember them and their novels.

Everything in MORTAL REMAINS is just about perfect, from the quiet creepiness of the opening paragraphs as a rural county sheriff and physician-coroner make a grisly underwater discovery that solves a decades-old disappearance and opens a murder investigation, to the closing chapters, wherein Clement sets the reader chasing along multiple plot lines in races against death.

Dr. Earl Garnet, a familiar figure to Clement's readers is back, but MORTAL REMAINS is more the story of Dr. Mark Roper, a physician with ties to rural upstate New York and the sorrows of his past. His duties as part-time coroner result in his discovery of the mortal remains of Kelly McShane, missing for over a quarter-century. Roper's discovery brings him into direct contact with Garnet, who has a secret about McShane.

Roper has his own history with McShane --- she was his babysitter and a patient of his father --- and as a result both men have a vested interest in discovering who ended her life so violently, and why. Their investigation begins to uncover secrets that have lain buried and fallow for over a quarter-century, but that are no less dangerous once revealed. Garnet and Roper discover that, as they slowly stumble toward the truth, they are placing themselves and those around them in terrible danger.

Roper has an additional complication. His new resident, Lucy O'Connor, seems too good to be true, and may well be. Her arrival is almost too precipitous to be random, and she seems to have ties to the area that she is reticent to reveal. Roper must determine whether she will be his salvation --- or his worst nightmare.

Clement's plotting and pacing in MORTAL REMAINS is absolutely first-rate, and while a good bit of this finely written novel takes place in a hospital (it is, after all, a medical thriller) Clement provides a nice change of pace by moving a good deal of the action to rural New York. His introduction of Roper as an unconventional general practitioner who is the ideal match for his rural patient base is handled perfectly. Roper is too good a character to be consigned to literary oblivion; we'll hopefully see him in a novel of his own in the near future. And Peter Clement has become too good a writer to be known only to a limited audience. If you haven't read Clement before, jump on MORTAL REMAINS now.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Sheriff Dan Evans of Hampton Junction in upstate New York had volunteers dragging the nearby lake for the body of an elderly Alzheimer's patient who disappeared several days ago. They found the bones of a left forearm of a body that has been in the lake a very long time. This leads to the sheriff and Dr. Mark Ruper, the county coroner to dive into the lake to retrieve the body.

When they locate the body, it is obvious that a crime occurred and the forensic team must examine the scene. When they are finally able to bring the skeleton up, they discover it is the body of Dr. Kelly McShane Branden who disappeared twenty-seven year ago. Mark, who has fond memories of Kelly won't rest until her killer is brought to justice. Earl Garnet, who believed at the time that Kelly did a disappearing act to escape her abusive husband, assists the doctor in seeing justice occur. Both men are almost killed because they refuse to let a murderer escape.

Fans of Michael Palmer and Robin Cook must add Peter Clement to their list of writers of exciting medical thrillers. Readers get a real sense of the victim through the eyes of those who cared about her and hope that the doctors will be successful in their quest. The protagonist of this novel is a family doctor who goes the extra mile for his patients, a hero in the truest sense of the word. Readers will love him and hope there will be more medical thrillers starring this special humanitarian.

Harriet Klausner

POWerful medical thriller with all the requisite chemistry to keep me up all night, glued to the page. I could not put this one down until its final, satisfying denouement. Great combination of greed, pride, medical technology, love and mystereous happenings. I would recommend this one to everyone.

Thanks for the fantastic read.

Irene

Clement's Mortal Remains is a medical thriller for medically trained people. The book makes extensive use of medical terminology and jargon to the extent that a layperson would find comprehension of some scenes challenging. Though he is careful to write out anagrams and acronyms commonly used in a medical setting, he seldom explains the meaning of these phrases, detracting from the tension that knowledge of these phrases would give. For example, he explains DONT is the medical anagram for dextrose, oxygen, Narcan, and thiamine, and he explains that this is the basic approach for treating an unconscious or comatose patient. He neglects, however, to connect how following this procedure could make a life-or-death difference in the patient's existence, thus depriving an unknowing reader of the scene's tension.
Having a strong medical background, I enjoyed this read. A layperson may not find it quite as thrilling, however. Still, I'd recommend it to fans of ER and Discovery Health.

This book was solidly average. It just barely held my interest enough to finish it. If the lead character hadn't been so obtuse, the plot could not have gone on. The characters were developed fairly well, but the plot was based on educated people not using their intelligence or common sense.