Customer Reviews

Under the Knife: A Beautiful Woman, a Phony Doctor, and a Shocking Homicide

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

 

 

The tale of Dean Faiello, the fake doctor who let a woman die because of his incompetence is the story of a deeply self-enchanted man. As another reviewer here has noted, Faiello is a narcissist happy to blithely torched the lives of anyone if it makes his life easier. Whether taking the life savings of a former lover, all but stealing the legacy of another, or putting a patient who's OD'd on lidocane into a suitcase and burying her in his garage, Faiello is never troubled by a conscience or even simple human compassion. And like many such trainwrecks, he's a fascinating subject.

Fanning tells his story and that of his victims effectively. She's clearly on the verge of joining the first rank of True Crime writers along with Ann Rule, Tommy Thompson and others. It's disappointing and frankly frustrating to me that after Fanning's stellar effort on Written in Blood where she elevated an insta-book to a worthy addition to the True Crime canon she still doesn't have a hardcover deal. I'm delighted by St. Martin's commitment to the genre but let's face it, they aren't giving their writers the luxuries of time and resources to really explore their subjects. It's even more frustrating when Court TV anchor's Catherine Crier's far less insightful efforts are in hardcover. Crier's books aren't bad but they're certainly not better than Fanning's last two. I, for one, would love to see what Fanning could do given the time, support and the right story.

Back to the book - this is an absorbing, fast read. Well worth the time of any True Crime fan.

The writing was good, but the story just didn't lend itself to a whole book. There was a lot of filler and unnecessary details.

I should probably preface this by saying that I'm not a big fan of the true crime genre anyway. That being said, I feel this book is poorly written and jumps around too much in the narrative, which comes across, to me, as cheap tabloid writing. As for the story itself, I find it infuriating that(a) this crime probably could have been solved much sooner than it was if the police had not been so careless, and(b) that Faiello still got a relatively light sentence in view of his brutal callousness and the multitude of charges that COULD have been brought against this hideous person. To the best of my knowledge, he still has not been indicted in New Jersey (where I live)for transporting Maria Cruz's body across state lines. May she rest in peace.

Fanning is showing remarkable talent in this latest book relating the story of Dean Faiello, an electrolysis technician turned practicing, non-licensed physician. As a result of only playing doctor, he takes the life of beautiful Filipino-born Maria Cruz when she seeks treatment from Faillo for a rare, yet not fatal, disorder of the tongue.

What is extremely interesting in reading about this particular case is the numerous acts of manipulations Faillo was able to complete successfully; and many of them on individuals that no one could ever suspect would be capable of falling for such foolishness.

As a general rule, narcissism rules among killers; however, I believe that Fiallo takes the cake of them all!

I am not quite half way through this book; i think it is well written (so far) and obviously Dean Faiello has a sociopathic personality; he simply indulges his wants and desires without any concern for others; my question, though is how could a successful woman like Maria Cruz go to someone's apartment ( he worked out of a friend's apartment) and expect to get safe medical care? the man didn't even have a medical office; that fact just blows me away; perhaps it was a cultural gap, since she wasn't born in the U.S., she didn't understand that legitimate practicioners don't practice in an apartment. I don't know what it was; it is a sad, tragic and gruesome tale and should impart one lesson: no medical procedure is without risk and should always be undertaken in a legitimate medical facility with people who have verified credentials. Rest in peace Maria

Let me say how sorry I am that such a horror as this took place and my condolences to the family. That said, for some reason I just didn't quite care for or "get" the way it was written. It just seemed to drag on and on. And how this man continued to get away with what he did (as do others) is always amazing. May I be so stupid as to say that "it never needed to happen".

I bought this book based on the outstanding reviews it received here on Amazon.com and I love Ann Rule, who Fanning has been compared to. Obviously, I had high expectations.

Under the Knife was VERY well researched and I'm sure it wasn't easy given the complexity. The volume of facts must have taken hours to organize. However, at times the author rambles on about seemingly unimportant characters making it hard to follow. I found myself flipping back and forth trying to find names. Also, I noted redundancy and way too much background on little details of the crime. I enjoyed the history lesson on Costa Rica, but again it went on forever! Still, I read it in about 3 days because I wanted to know what happened next. I'm not sure I'll buy another Fanning book though. Sorry Diane!

This book was a shocker, something out of a horror movie. It amazes me that this person was able to fool so many people. Great read Diane.