Fatal Intent

 By Tammy Euliano

Oceanview     2021

311 pages     Thriller

I named “thriller” as the genre of Fatal Intent, but a good bit of the book is a medical procedural book and also an exploration of moral intent.  Here is Goodread’s summary.

“Elderly patients are dying at home days after minor surgery. Natural causes? Malpractice? Or a serial killer? And why doesn’t anyone care? Anesthesiologist Dr. Kate Downey wants to know why, but her unorthodox investigation threatens her job, her family, and her very life. The stakes escalate to the breaking point when Kate, under violent duress, is forced to choose which of her loved ones to save—and which must be sacrificed. “

Perhaps the best thing about Fatal Intent is the protagonist. Dr. Kate Downey is an anesthesiologist at a Florida hospital. She has had a really rough life; most recently her husband has been on life support for nearly a year, and she has also had a late-term miscarriage that she continues to grieve over. When two of her patients die mysteriously, she has to discover the truth while also defending her role as the presiding anesthetist in order to save her career. (Of course, her last name is a bit of a connection to my family. Love to see my name in print!)

The first third of the book was clunky with lots of characters being introduced and quite a bit of confusion over what was going on. We do have to remember that Euliano is a practicing physician and a first time author. I would hope that as her skill develops, her introductory passages would improve as well.

As the plot took off, things sorted themselves out, and I continued to read, although I do have to say that I never quite bought into the plot line and the overall theme of the book. And there were a lot of dead people! One thing that made me uncomfortable was instead of emphasizing humanitarian choices regarding the right to die and assisted death, Euliano seemed to be suggesting that sometimes family members get tired of caring for their dying relative and seek to speed up the process. That most likely was not the author’s goal, but with some of the deaths, that certainly is what seemed to be happening.

After saying that, however, the last third of the book moved very quickly and the ending, although violent, is complete. Dr. Downey’s journey leads to much more grief and many more questions about end-of-life care. The author suggests in her epilogue that she wants to encourage discussion on ways to answer this question: “When is life no longer worth living and who should decide?” Did she succeed? I’m not sure, and readers will have to decide for themselves.

 Fatal Intent will be published on March 2. Here is Tammy Euliano’s website.