Act of Deception

I pretty much raved about John Bishop MD’s first novel in the Doc Brady series, entitled Act of Revenge. Now, he’s released the second book, Act of Revenge, and you’ll have to tolerate another positive rave about this medical thriller by this reviewer. The protagonist, Dr. James Robert Brady, is an orthopedic surgeon working in Houston, and he specializing in doing hip and knee replacements. In this book, he’s the target of a malpractice claim by a patient whose knee replacement looked very good, but then became infected in the postoperative period. Treatment for the infection failed, and the patient ended up with an above-the-knee amputation.

I’ll admit that I’m biased in favor of orthopedic surgeons. My favorite med school mentor was a hotshot orthopedist who nearly had me convinced to follow him into his specialty (before I saw the light and became a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst), But, decades ago, I was privileged enough to serve as his first assistant on multiple patients who got hip and knee replacements. The surgeries were magical. And now I’ve benefitted from the continued improvement of the surgery and the materials that are used – I have an artificial hip which works great. But, I also saw a lot of things that did not go well. Infections are the bane of such operations.

As with his first book, the character development of Dr. Jim Bob, his wife, and those around him was excellent, and I only saw the plot come together near the end of this mystery – a very satisfying ending. I thought it was very realistic and there were both good guy attorneys, and despicable ones. I’ve also testified as an expert witness in a few medical malpractice cases, and I thought Dr. Bishop also captured the stress of being the target of a malpractice claim, as well as the impact of such on his family, colleagues, and friends.

This was an A+/5-star read. It’s due out in June 2020. And now I’m eager to see Bishop’s third book in this series which is to be published in September.