Prescription to Kill - Elizabeth Sellers

Based in Dallas, Texas, Prescription to Kill is a murder mystery centered around the inhabitants of a neurosurgery department.

First year intern, Joan Murdock, finds herself in a heart wrenching situation of not being able to save her good friend - Ree Pierce. But Ree's death is not all it seems. Joan begins to unravel her friends mysterious death and then a hospital pharmacist who stumbles across a vital clue, is brutally murdered. Could Ree's and the pharmacist's death have been carried out by the same person?

During her investigation, Joan discovers that Ree had been having an affair with her uncle - Blaine Wilmot, Chief Neurosurgeon. Is he somehow involved in her death? And, is he really addicted to prescription drugs? Joan has a lot a questions and few answers. Her quest to determine who killed her good friend leads her to some very surprising results.

Essentially, this is a good mystery. The author (who has medical background) introduces the characters in the first few pages of the book - almost in a resume style. With this information, the story starts with Ree Pierce. I was lead to believe that she would be the main character, but this slightly unusual stance allowed me to have an empathy with soon to be killed intern and therefore root for Joan to find her murderer.

I enjoyed this novel but found a lot of the medical terminology a little overwhelming (and I watch a lot of medical dramas, so am used to some of the terms). It seemed that the explanation of what the medical term meant was included as an afterthought which made the story a little disjointed. Perhaps a little stilted in the beginning, but the author soon finds her rhythm especially when I came across some moments of pure descriptive genius; "Blaine rolled off the woman with the sweaty dispatch of a packed evacuee fleeing an Ebola camp at dawn". (Chapter 20, pg. 173) which I found gave some light relief to an otherwise tense story line.

Nothing to do with the actual narrative, was the formatting of the text. It seemed it was not checked properly and I came across sentences that broke at odd places. It's a minor distraction that I soon enough ignored, but it needed mentioning.

If you enjoy medical mysteries, it's a recommend read.

I received a complimentary copy of Prescription to Kill as a member of the Dorrance Book Review team - the opinions expressed are my own. Visit dorrancebookstore.com to learn how you can become a member of the Book Review Team.