TURNABOUT

Nice title, original,
RT

When the hell did this obsession with matters medical set in? I don't recall Shakespear, Dickens or Dylan banging on about quacks. But then I suppose people just worked and croaked then, or died in Tolstoyan battles. My point, albeit laboured, is that there seem to be thousnds of TV programs and stories like this. Of course you can counter by saying that this is evidence of the dying public's lust for same. But it bores me to ... ach, phone 911 someone please. I ... I ... How about a story about a surgeon's relationship with his instruments, something original? Interestingly in checking out pitches here for two weeks I have not seen one about a lawyer...but I have seen several about gone wrong medics. Time to sell medical pitches and switch into lawyer stories? Aggggggg! Thought I see you twin the two in the first two lines of your pitch. How about writing about scalpels? Who makes them? Which are the best? The nature of the steel? Are they made in Japan? or Germany? OK so I am a bit pished, but you're getting the truth dude. A scalpel story wld be effing original. Can you imaging the world's top medico's discussing the philosopy of scalpels over brandy? Now that might be a story along the lines of REMAINS OF THE DAY, unusual. Ach, I'm bored.

Dear Bruce,
You convey the confusion inside the main character’s head, beautifully. I thought he was in bed at the start and it took me a little while to work out his surroundings, which means I was identifying with the main character.
However, the story soon unfolds and it makes perfect sense for him to be sleeping in his office once we realise that he’s a doctor; it also tells us a little about his character and the fact that he’s a man with a strong work ethic. The fact’s driven home by the reference to his being ‘famous’; this is all good characterisation.
You do a good job of explaining the backdrop for the story with the conversation in the deli. It’s nice that this is done in the form of a dialogue between two people as this means there are real characters and emotions involved and that we’re in the heart of the action rather than reading a long piece of narrative; this is nice work.
You do a good job of describing JR and the relationship with the patients. I do wonder if perhaps by seeing him with his patients and their reaction to him, against the backdrop of the case, if whether we couldn’t see his character develop a little more subtly. There are a lot of long descriptions about how he’s feeling; I want you to show me, not tell me.
That said as we shift to the ER the action comes thick and fast with some good realistic descriptions of the types of trauma that they have to face.
Happy to shelve this and wish you the best with it.
Sarah

“Since Joyce took her leave of absence . . .” This is exposition. Wouldn’t Fred already know this?
The discussion over coffee that lays the foundation for the lawsuit is interesting – but did you think of beginning the story with this so it’s happening in real time rather than being told as something that happened in the past?
Fred sees four patients – but none of them comment on his lawsuit? Are nervous about having a doctor who is being sued for malpractice take care of them?
“Only one exit wound,” Hal quipped. Quipped feels like the wrong word here. Isn’t that usually used when a person tells a joke?
This entire scene in the E.R. is exciting. Did you think of starting the book with this? Let us see from the very beginning that Fred is a skilled doctor? His malpractice suit must not be his fault?
“You always have your hands in some kind of mess . . .” It seems odd that Fred would wonder what Doug means by this. Fred says his malpractice suit is common hospital gossip. So wouldn’t it be obvious to him what Doug means?
CHARACTERS: You have good characters here. Fred is likable; obviously cares about his patients. Laura is a little stereotypical: his long suffering nurse, secretly in love with him and waiting for him to realize he loves her too.
DIALOGUE: Laura seems to always speak in log sentences; that happens because she’s invariably offering back story; ask if there isn’t another way to reveal some of the things she tells Fred without her having to tell him. I don’t have a medical background so you lost me some places during the resuscitation, but okay (took me a while to realize GSW meant gunshot wound). I’d have thought the E.R. crew would have used a slang expression like Homeboy special or something for that.
OVERALL: You have an interesting beginning here. To really hook your reader, though, you might think of beginning with a more exciting happening than a man waking up from a night’s sleep. The scene in the E.R., for example would do that. And because we wouldn’t know about the law suit yet, Doug’s remark about always being in some kind of mess would leave us puzzling too.

Hi Bruce. Am finally returning the favour--sorry to have taken so long. Great cover and great genre--the surge of medical TV series should mean there’s a good market for medical whodunnits (are the former as full of errors as those ghastly CSI episodes btw--SOCOs poncing around crime scenes in high heels and fur lined coats?!). There’s no such problem with Turnabout--interventions and hospital descriptions are factual (yes, educational even) and I found myself devouring them with a morbid curiosity (“rib spreaders”, “The rounded belly of the scalpel blade seemed to have eyes.”)--even though I’ve been exposed to pretty gruesome sights myself (examining the stools of amebic dysentery sufferers and a particularly heavy infection of Ascaris spring to mind). I found your whole ER section utterly engrossing and particularly liked: “Tension and chaos hang like a low fog with a medicinal smell that mesmerizes the brain.” My only worry is that T might be too detailed and too factual for your average reader (only guessing here--the closest I’ve come to a medical thriller are the Patricia Cornwell books)?
Dr Pomeroy is utterly convincing too. He’s meticulous (“You know how I am about details…”) both in his practise of medicine and in his observation of people and their characters. It’s almost as if he’s written the book himself (there’s obviously a lot of Dr Pomeroy in you--or vice-versa). The narrative is as crisp and neat as he is--were the following puns intentional btw: “there weren’t a lot of things that sustained his interest unless he though he could operate on it.”? “bowels of the hospital”?
My suggestions (take them with a pinch of salt) would be to shorten the first chapter and start it with a bang (with the ER intervention perhaps or something equally gory that would grab the reader and plunge them straight into the plot and the life of Dr P?). I personally found expressions such as “As I broke bread”, “wax very paternal” weighed down the narrative--think they should be excised with a sharp scalpel (but you’re the doctor!) and perhaps some of the detail could go too (“...the aroma of coffee was arousing even though I knew it was decaffeinated.” and the price of the espresso machine, for example?). In chapter 1 you mention that Dr P has a light caseload and then that “a schedule of patients had already materialized for me”--he certainly sounds pretty busy! Finally, I spotted a typo in your your pitch (betrayl).
Good luck with this and thanks once more for your comments on MB.

*****I'm new to the site and first time author. Would appreciate you taking a look at my book, Turnabout by Bruce Kaler. Its a medical mystery thriller. Many thanks. Look forward to your comments.*****

Sure, as soon as I see your bookshelf full. :-))