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Final duty fails to thrill
DISSECTING ROOM
Final duty fails to thrill Final duty Paul Carson. London: William Heinemann, 2000. Pp 321. £16·99. ISBN 043400815X. o, you want to write a thriller? First get a cast together. Paul Carson lines up a Hero, an ambitious Irish cardiologist; a Heroine, his gorgeous Australian wife; their Winsome Child, who is soccer mad; a Dedicated Secretary, who is black; some Villains, who are foreign (so do not speak English properly); and a feisty old lady. Get their names right. Guess who the baddies are here: Beth Hunt, Gert Crozer, Stan Danker, Nat Parker, Hend de Mart, Helen Bradley. (Got it: Gert, Stan, and Hend.) Setting? The USA, of course: Chicago with a trip to California. Plot? The usual: multinational-corporation-fights-dirty-toprevent-exposure. Stir in some Sex (heterosexual, marital, consensual, and amazingly dull) and Violence (pastiched
S
and mostly vented on children), and head for the Happy Ending, taking in the Moral along the way. Similar assemblages are standard for those thrillers that clog airport bookstalls. Final duty fails in this simplest genre of fiction because the author has not done his homework. Successful thriller writers know that they cannot afford to get facts wrong—mistake the cubic capacity of a 1962 Firebird motor car or the calibre of a chromed Colt Snarl and readers will shake their heads and turn to an author who knows the business. Paul Carson is, as the dustjacket notes, a “medical doctor”, so has less excuse than have most authors tackling a medical topic for the multitude of errors, omissions, and misconceptions about medical practice and medical
From the medical museum Waggett’s fountain
Liverpool, the Metropolitan n the UK there were Free Drinking Fountains recurrent epidemics of Association was founded in cholera during the 1830s, 1859 (by a Quaker Member of 1840s, and 1850s. Careful Parliament) to erect drinking case-mapping by medical men ultifountains in London and elsewhere. mately showed that the disease was The movement was a great success: spread by contaminated water. By the research in 1882 estimated that the end of the 1850s, most of London’s public pumps had been sealed. But this sanatory improvement had its drawbacks. Clean piped water was available only to those who could pay. In slum districts, it was turned on for only a few hours a day, and never on Sunday. Unless stored in barrels or other receptacles, people went without. London’s water was like the ocean to Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner— “water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink”. Working people traversing the metropolis, or thirsty at their work, had lost access to the public water supplies that the pumps had provided. Tea and coffee were expensive, beer and spirits cheap. The need for free public supplies of pure fresh water was perceived and understood by contemporary philanthropists, on grounds of health, temperance, and religious precedent: “I was thirsty and ye Dr Waggett’s fountain, by St John’s Church, gave me drink.” After a successful initiative in Ladbroke Grove, London
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research that litter this novel. LA demon pharmaceutical company is corruptly promoting Cyclint as a “heart attack preventer”.What sort of drug is it, how does it work? The author does not say. Some pharmaceutical companies may be unscrupulous in their promotion of their products, but the scale of deception, misconduct, and bribery that “Zemdon” plunge into will suspend many a reader’s belief. Mentions of the Irish hero’s professional duties and research interests are sketchy and unconvincing. The book’s jacket carries an excerpt from a review in The Irish Times which suggests that Carson’s villain is, “as bad a baddie as Hannibal Lecter”. Not so, and nor does Carson come anywhere near Hannibal’s creator in making sure that every historical, medical, and forensic detail is meticulously accurate; and the plot narrowly but firmly on the right side of credible. John Bignall C/o The Lancet, London, UK
Association’s many fountains and cattle troughs were serving more than 250 000 000 drinkers a year. That year, Dr John Waggett MD FRCS (1818–1909) decided to donate funds sufficient to erect a drinking fountain on the crest of London’s Notting Hill. Dr Waggett was preparing to retire from the district he had served for nearly 40 years as a general practitioner, vaccinator, and as honorary surgeon to the local dispensary for the poor. Waggett had an interest in cholera, contributing to a government report on the 1854 epidemic. The death rate from the disease among the working poor in the slums of the Potteries, Notting Dale, in his patch, was more than nine times greater than among people housed in the new “model” housing championed by Prince Albert (25·9 vs 2·9 per 1000). Waggett’s obituary characterised him as “a perfect specimen of the highest class of general practitioner . . . not a man who cared for public life, but always ready to aid any good work”. His fountain was still working well in the 1950s, but has since run dry. Ruth Richardson With thanks to the staff at the Guildhall Library, the London Metropolitan Archives, Clerkenwell, and to Richard Jones at the BMA Library.
THE LANCET • Vol 357 • May 19, 2001
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet Publishing Group.
Final duty fails to thrill Final duty Paul Carson. London: William Heinemann, 2000. Pp 321. £16·99. ISBN 043400815X. o, you want to write a thriller? First get a cast together. Paul Carson lines up a Hero, an ambitious Irish cardiologist; a Heroine, his gorgeous Australian wife; their Winsome Child, who is soccer mad; a Dedicated Secretary, who is black; some Villains, who are foreign (so do not speak English properly); and a feisty old lady. Get their names right. Guess who the baddies are here: Beth Hunt, Gert Crozer, Stan Danker, Nat Parker, Hend de Mart, Helen Bradley. (Got it: Gert, Stan, and Hend.) Setting? The USA, of course: Chicago with a trip to California. Plot? The usual: multinational-corporation-fights-dirty-toprevent-exposure. Stir in some Sex (heterosexual, marital, consensual, and amazingly dull) and Violence (pastiched
S
and mostly vented on children), and head for the Happy Ending, taking in the Moral along the way. Similar assemblages are standard for those thrillers that clog airport bookstalls. Final duty fails in this simplest genre of fiction because the author has not done his homework. Successful thriller writers know that they cannot afford to get facts wrong—mistake the cubic capacity of a 1962 Firebird motor car or the calibre of a chromed Colt Snarl and readers will shake their heads and turn to an author who knows the business. Paul Carson is, as the dustjacket notes, a “medical doctor”, so has less excuse than have most authors tackling a medical topic for the multitude of errors, omissions, and misconceptions about medical practice and medical
From the medical museum Waggett’s fountain
Liverpool, the Metropolitan n the UK there were Free Drinking Fountains recurrent epidemics of Association was founded in cholera during the 1830s, 1859 (by a Quaker Member of 1840s, and 1850s. Careful Parliament) to erect drinking case-mapping by medical men ultifountains in London and elsewhere. mately showed that the disease was The movement was a great success: spread by contaminated water. By the research in 1882 estimated that the end of the 1850s, most of London’s public pumps had been sealed. But this sanatory improvement had its drawbacks. Clean piped water was available only to those who could pay. In slum districts, it was turned on for only a few hours a day, and never on Sunday. Unless stored in barrels or other receptacles, people went without. London’s water was like the ocean to Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner— “water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink”. Working people traversing the metropolis, or thirsty at their work, had lost access to the public water supplies that the pumps had provided. Tea and coffee were expensive, beer and spirits cheap. The need for free public supplies of pure fresh water was perceived and understood by contemporary philanthropists, on grounds of health, temperance, and religious precedent: “I was thirsty and ye Dr Waggett’s fountain, by St John’s Church, gave me drink.” After a successful initiative in Ladbroke Grove, London
I
1628
research that litter this novel. LA demon pharmaceutical company is corruptly promoting Cyclint as a “heart attack preventer”.What sort of drug is it, how does it work? The author does not say. Some pharmaceutical companies may be unscrupulous in their promotion of their products, but the scale of deception, misconduct, and bribery that “Zemdon” plunge into will suspend many a reader’s belief. Mentions of the Irish hero’s professional duties and research interests are sketchy and unconvincing. The book’s jacket carries an excerpt from a review in The Irish Times which suggests that Carson’s villain is, “as bad a baddie as Hannibal Lecter”. Not so, and nor does Carson come anywhere near Hannibal’s creator in making sure that every historical, medical, and forensic detail is meticulously accurate; and the plot narrowly but firmly on the right side of credible. John Bignall C/o The Lancet, London, UK
Association’s many fountains and cattle troughs were serving more than 250 000 000 drinkers a year. That year, Dr John Waggett MD FRCS (1818–1909) decided to donate funds sufficient to erect a drinking fountain on the crest of London’s Notting Hill. Dr Waggett was preparing to retire from the district he had served for nearly 40 years as a general practitioner, vaccinator, and as honorary surgeon to the local dispensary for the poor. Waggett had an interest in cholera, contributing to a government report on the 1854 epidemic. The death rate from the disease among the working poor in the slums of the Potteries, Notting Dale, in his patch, was more than nine times greater than among people housed in the new “model” housing championed by Prince Albert (25·9 vs 2·9 per 1000). Waggett’s obituary characterised him as “a perfect specimen of the highest class of general practitioner . . . not a man who cared for public life, but always ready to aid any good work”. His fountain was still working well in the 1950s, but has since run dry. Ruth Richardson With thanks to the staff at the Guildhall Library, the London Metropolitan Archives, Clerkenwell, and to Richard Jones at the BMA Library.
THE LANCET • Vol 357 • May 19, 2001
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet Publishing Group.