This is my first Robin Cook in years, and while I always enjoyed the author's medical thrillers. this one has too much of a focus on the supernatural and the occult for me. Other loyal Cook fans, however, will surely love it.

As nurses we dread 7/1 every year when the new residents start. But I do find it tedious to read about their lives and schedules before the book finally got to its true purpose of discovering the “sins of the relatives “. I did love the shocking ending leaving us wondering if it brought closure to the aparitions and the possibility of going insane for the new resident. It definitely peaked my curiosity to learn more about Bellevue and it’s history.

As a devotee of Robin Cook’s novels (particularly the Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery series), I was looking forward to this latest endeavor. After a promising beginning detailing the happenings to a surgical resident is his first few days at the hospital, the novel became tedious and delved into the world of the occult and fantasy and was not enjoyed by this reader. It was also extremely distressing to constantly refer to a dictionary to determine the meaning of words used — cacosmia, orbitoclast, raphe, bioethicist, inguinal, platysma, subungeal, parathesia and decerebrate to name a few.
I thank NetGalley and G.P. Putnam’s Sons for the opportunity to read and review this novel prior to publication and I sincerely hope Dr. Cook returns to additional books about his fictional medical examiners.

What’s scarier? Ghosts in a hospital or everything that can go wrong during surgery and post op? That’s the question with Robin Cook’s new supernatural/medical thriller. And I vote for the hospital surgeries, ICU, and all that can go south quickly.
Mitt Fuller has just started his residency in Bellevue, where several past ancestors were known as pioneers in their field. Exhausted after his first day, where he sat in on three patient surgeries all of whom have died from strange circumstances, he’s going to rest when he sees the ghost of a girl in old fashioned dress. As he continues to see her and others, Mitt fears he’s losing his mind as more of his patients die. He’s also found out his ancestors are not the heroes his family have made them out to be but doctors who would operate without sedative, didn’t believe in germ control and who would perform unneeded lobotomies.
I enjoyed the supernatural part of the novel but felt bored and queasy at the level of detail Cooks goes into with each procedure, although the thyroid storm was fascinating. I would have enjoyed the book more with less medical minutiae, and more build up to the finale of the book, which ended too abruptly and let me completely dissatisfied.