domingo, junho 07, 2015

The Good Nurse, by Charles Graeber

A very good book, in the tradition of the "journalistic novel", like In Cold Blood (without the writing virtuosity of Capote, though). It reads like a thriller, particularly the investigation part - it's as good as the TV series The Wire - and it feels like a horror story. Because it's really creepy. Worse than the murderous nurse's crimes, it's the hospitals' administrations attitude, worried about their reputation and not patients' safety. Actually what it most strikes one is that this guy wasn't particularly intelligent or careful - after all, it's very easy to kill patients in serious conditions in the ICU without arising suspicions. This nurse was sloppy and incompetent, he had a personal history of mental disturbances known to all, he was fired from multiple hospitals, but still he found it easy to be hired and put in the care of vulnerable patients. And not one of them was criminally prosecuted, even after having tried to stall the investigation in every way they could. Then, in the end, there's the surrealistic story of the kidney donation... All in all, chilling.

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