#BookReview ‘Sometimes People Die’ by Simon Stephenson

About the book…

The year is 1999. Returning to practice after a suspension for stealing opioids, a young Scottish doctor takes the only job he can find: a post as a senior house officer in the struggling east London hospital of St Luke’s.

Amid the maelstrom of sick patients, over-worked staff and underfunded wards a darker secret soon declares itself: too many patients are dying.

Which of the medical professionals our protagonist has encountered is behind the murders? And can our unnamed narrator’s version of the events be trusted?

My thanks to Sofia at Midas PR for inviting me on the blog tour for the superb (and terrifying) new thriller, ‘Sometimes People Die’, which with echoes of one of my favourite novels, ‘A Paper Mask’ by John Collee, made me want to jump up and down when I was able to join the blog tour. However, the watermark across the pages of the e-book proved a little tricky to navigate so I am a bit slower with having read it than I would like to have been and am tremendously late with my review-apologies all!

As a nurse there are certain maxims which run true, including that just sometimes people die, not matter what you could have done, or did do, the march of death is inevitable. And this goes double for our care of the elderly patients, which is so vividly realised in this novel, it is seen as a less than stellar career choice for the medical professional and a thankless task to navigate.

So when this young doctor, who has travelled from Scotland to London to take one of the only jobs he could be considered for -a HUGE red flag waving about how easily he was accepted, the lack of background checks etc -we only have his word for it that his previous opioid addiction is a matter for his past not his present. His keenness to work as a Dr in one of the most deprived and understaffed hospitals rang so true, the reality of a junior doctor’s life was so well depicted, that I felt I was working the shift with him. Nothing about it was exaggerated.

It is not until the death of an elderly patient starts alarm bells ringing that the story hits a completely different gear and you, and the narrator, start narrowing down just who could be responsible for the high number of deaths, and why. A touching and exasperating story because despite it being set in 1999 (possibly to circumvent some of the checks and measures we use to hire new staff) many of the same pressures are hitting us health care staff on a daily basis. The worn out sister, the capable but lacking in confidence student nurses, the consultant asking why a patient has been admitted and not discharged days ago. All of this are still factors in the day-to-day ness of health care work , but as this novel, which is interspersed with examples those who have used their Hippocratic oath to mask an intent to kill, posits, were they serial killers who trained as doctors or nurses, or vice versa?

It’s an extremely chilling notion that transcends a whodunnit, to a level of why does the system exist that let them do it?

And with modern day examples such as Harold Shipman , who knows how many more are yet to be uncovered, if ever?

The power over life and death is a tremendous pull on the egomaniacal killer, but which one is it?

Thoroughly recommended, this will keep you on the edge of your seat and desperate to find out what happens next.

About the author…

Hello, good readers!

I am from Edinburgh in Scotland, but now reside in Los Angeles, California. I have had stopovers along the way in London and San Francisco. I’m a writer and screenwriter, and before I became a full-time writer I was a physician.

My new novel, ‘Sometimes People Die’ will be published in September 2022. It’s a literary thriller set in a hospital in east London around the turn of the millenium.

I have written two other books. ‘‘Set My Heart To Five’’ came out in 2020. The Washington Post review said that I might be ‘Vonnegut’s first true protege’. You’d better believe I have been dining out on that ever since, and will be for the rest of my days.

‘‘Let Not The Waves Of The Sea’’, my memoir about losing my brother came out in 2012. It won Best First Book at the Scottish Book Awards, and was serialized on BBC Radio 4.

I’ve worked as a writer on various films including Pixar’s LUCA, PADDINGTON 2, and my own THE ELECTRICAL LIFE OF LOUIS WAIN. Like every other screenwriter in Hollywood, I have a bottom drawer full of unproduced scripts.

Away from work I mostly like to ride my bike in nearby Griffith Park. in hope of encountering my neighbor the mountain lion. I’m also a fan of animals (petting them not eating them,) cakes (eating them not petting them), and soccer/football.

Links-http://www.simonstephenson.com/

Twitter @thesimonbot @midaspr @BoroughPress