Carrie Rubin, a favorite medical thriller author, does it again

Fatal Rounds

by Carrie Rubin

In Carrie Rubin’s latest medical thriller, Fatal Rounds (Indigo Dot Press (2022), recent medical school grad, Liza Larkin is starting her pathology internship at Titus McCall, a renowned hospital though her #2 choice. For Liza, a brilliant and eclectic doctor with a brain like no other, she could have gone to her #1, but picked this one because of the popular and successful Dr. Sam Donovan. She’s not stalking him. In fact, she thinks he’s stalking her and by working with him, hopes to find out why. With her father dead, her mother schizophrenic, and her brother mildly depressed, it falls to Liza–with her superior intellect, her clever ability to connect dots, and her own considerable mental issues bordering on autism to be the strength behind her family. That means stopping anyone who endangers her mother or brother. Because of her own medical history, those who might support her are reluctant to do so, but as she finds more facts that can’t be denied, ugly truths no one wants revealed begin to take shape. For Liza, the threats that brings to her have no weight against protecting those who need her.

I’ve read many of Carrie Rubin’s books–The Cruise Ship Lost My Daughter and The Bone Curse (click for reviews) for example. Being a medical doctor herself, developing a credible plot for a medical thriller is second nature. If this is your preferred genre, do yourself a favor and start reading her books. For this one, here are a few lines that stick with me:

“…I am indeed an island. Everyone else is on the mainland.”

“I don’t listen to music. Nature and my thoughts are enough.”

“She [Liza’s schizophrenic mother] chose my name, Liza, because it sounds like the German word for quiet: leise. Probably because she had so little quiet in her own head.”

“You are not a list of symptoms, Liza. You are not a diagnosis.”

“Like a good doctor only a whole lot better”

I don’t find a lot of medical thrillers that are credible to their genre and put me as a layperson into the action. Carrie does this with ease. Highly recommended for those who love thrillers, fast-moving plots, and quirky characters.

–received an ARC copy from NetGalley but opinions are my own

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Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular prehistoric fiction saga, Man vs. Nature which explores seminal events in man’s evolution one trilogy at a time. She is also the author of the Rowe-Delamagente thrillers and Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. Her non-fiction includes over a hundred books on integrating tech into education, reviews as an Amazon Vine Voice,  a columnist for NEA Today, and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. Look for her next prehistoric fiction, Natural Selection Fall 2022.

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