Customer Reviews

Salem Syndrome

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The author has given us an excellent look into the workings of some aspects of medicine. Dr. Bartlett is a generational surgeon, scientist, musician, and now novelist. There have been notable MD/Novelist who in some cases never practiced medicine and wrote about it. Or practiced medicine and wrote about aspects of it not directly familiar to them. Here we have a clinician with enormous experience who gives us a peek into what things are really like from personal experience. The author gives the reader ample background or what the legal profession calls building a foundation. So the story starts out slowly as the characters are introduced. However, the detailed background gives us a vivid understanding of these principal characters; their strengths or foibles as the case may be. As a result the story picks up and almost tells itself as it moves to an exciting conclusion. Truly a page turner. Anyone interested in medical mysteries would love this book. This should be required reading for all medical students, or, for that matter anyone interested in or working in the medical field. Let's hope this is just the beginning for this talented author.

This is a well written book that is surprisingly accurate in its depiction of medicine, law, and the astounding legal shift from "innocent until proven guilty" to "guilty until proven innocent" in child abuse cases. This novel is based loosely on an actual case. Dr. Bartlett directed the University of California, Irvine, burn center in the late 1970s. He was asked to review the case of a man convicted of child abuse for burning a child. Dr. Bartlett was convinced that it was an accident and the man was innocent. Angry at the travesty of justice - no physician with expertise in burns had evaluated the victim and no medical history had been taken - Dr. Bartlett began reviewing other burn-injury child abuse cases. This book grew out of his experience and study. The Salem Syndrome is his way of trying to correct a system where logic, reason, and proper procedure go completely out-the-window once someone yells "Child Abuse." It is a good read. Expect to be troubled as well as enlightened.

Although this book may not seem like a top-notch thriller, it does seem to qualify as an interesting read (although emotionally riveting at times), somewhat engrossing and informative with regard to the secrets of the medical world.

It seems this MD has found another niche in which to shine. I'll look forward to checking out his next book.