Act of Negligence – Review

John Bishop. Act of Negligence. Mantid, 2021.

Act of Negligence is the latest in the Doc Brady Mystery series. It looks like we may have to start listing these as we have done for Tom Clancy and Gordon Korman. This is the most pure detective novel of the four novels so far in the series.

Something weird seems to be going on in Dr. Jim Bob Brady’s hospital. A number of patients, all diagnosed with Alzhemer’s Dementia, have come for bone surgery of one type or another. Three out of four die shortly after surgery. The one survivor only makes it because he had a pacemaker and a heart surgeon who was called in got his pacemaker replaced in time. All the patients came from the same nursing home.

Most of what goes on involves piece by piece detective work. This includes some happy coincidences; for example, Dr. Brady and a friend attend a convention in New York City where one of the speakers, now semi-retired, was a leading authority on senior dementia until he got in trouble for some experiments he did on his patients.

Gradually, a body of evidence seems to be growing. One positive thing Dr. Brady sees is that one of the nurses who has taken care of the patients takes their humanity seriously in spite of their mental incapacity.

Unlike some of the other Doc Brady mysteries, Dr. Brady is not directly accused of malpractice. As he puts it, he is just the carpenter. The patients are dying of heart problems. The anesthesiologists are nervous. But in this case, Dr. Brady partners with the hospital’s pathologist, Dr. Clarke. Among other things, Dr. Clarke has a mug that says, “I see dead people.” An old friend of mine had a wife who was a pathologist. She had a similar sense of humor.

Dr. Clarke, prodded by Dr. Brady, makes a couple of unusual discoveries. Things get weirder, and if there is negligence, it seems to go back to the nursing home. But the doctor who runs the home and the home itself have sterling reputations. When Dr. Brady visits the place incognito, it does look like they run the place very well.

What is going on?

Step by step we can see the two doctors getting closer the root cause or causes of the problem. I was beginning to think that this was going to be different from the other Brady stories: not as much action, a more clever cerebral mystery. Wrong. The action kicks in near the end. Imagine a drug-induced car chase with helicopters. Helicopters do provide some of the action in a couple of places, actually.

This may be the most puzzling and most pure mental detective work of any of the Doc Brady mysteries. Brady keeps on guessing. So will the readers. In past novels, we have learned a lot about orthopedics, plastic surgery, and malpractice law. Here we are introduced to both pathology and brain science. Not only do we see a couple of doctors using their brains, but we learn a little more about the amazing organ known as the human brain. We are fearfully and wonderfully made indeed.

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