MRC RECOMMENDS: The Very Best of Care
by Julie Hatch
“Highly recommended if you love a good medical thriller that will keep you up half the night.” – The Mystery Review Crew
The Very Best of Care
By Julie Hatch
Genre: Medical Thriller
For fans of medical dramas like Grey’s Anatomy and thriller authors like Robin Cook, a debut novel about one woman’s attempt to fight back against the dark underbelly of medical malpractice in the NICU in order to save her premature babies’ life.
New York, 2012. A young mother stumbles on a disturbing secret: the health system is so broken that the lives of newborns and the unborn are no longer safe.
Three and a half months before her due date, Sophie Young is forced to deliver her tiny two-pound son—a baby boy barely old enough to survive. Caught in the labyrinth of hospital secrecy, Sophie meets the dark side of modern medicine: corruption, exploitation, and profiteering. When she discovers that a prominent physician has joined forces with Big Pharma to exploit pregnant women and their babies, she races to bring the guilty to justice and save her son before it’s too late.
In the end, Sophie has one message for her enemy: It’s a law of nature—never come between a mother and her child.
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Review of The Very Best of Care by Julie Hatch
When she felt a few twinges in her abdomen, Sophie Young debated getting herself checked out to be sure everything was as it should be with her pregnancy. Erring on the side of caution, she headed for a nearby hospital. She certainly didn’t expect to find herself a short time later in active labor and undergoing an emergency c-section, far too early in her pregnancy to be sure her baby could survive outside the womb.
As little Danny fights for life in the NICU, Sophie questions how this could have happened. Her sleuthing reveals a high-level conspiracy in the hospital to induce labor early in significant numbers of pregnant women, driving babies (and business) to the NICU. Sophie is livid that a respected physician would put her child and many others in this situation intentionally for his personal gain, and she is determined to bring him down.
Julie Hatch has written a nail-biter of a novel with The Very Best of Care! She uses fairly short chapters, which were an effective way of keeping the tension high and the pages turning. She also gives us a very sympathetic protagonist in Sophie, and there were times I almost had to cover my eyes with my hand and peek through my fingers because I just knew she was going to get caught in the act as she was digging for information.
As with any good story, the tale Hatch weaves has a strong element of believability. That’s what really makes this story one that gives you the frissons down your spine. You can believe that it could actually happen. If you check the headlines or take a peek at social media, you know society has no love lost for Big Pharma these days. And not without reason: multi-million-dollar bonuses for CEOs, soaring prescription prices for the average citizen, review boards that gainsay a patient’s doctor on the necessity of medicine or procedures, these things and more have become almost commonplace.
Is it impossible to believe that a doctor could mastermind a scheme like the one in this story and that a host of other people in the health care profession could be pulled into it? No, it is not.
Highly recommended if you love a good medical thriller that will keep you up half the night.
About Julie Hatch
Julie Hatch is a master’s prepared pediatric nurse practitioner with a passion for kids’ health and welfare. She spent over 30 years working in pediatric and neonatal intensive care. Ten years ago, she left western medicine to earn a master’s degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine and open her own acupuncture practice. At the same time, she began writing medical fiction, drawing on her experiences from the front lines of intensive care. THE VERY BEST OF CARE is her debut novel.
Julie lives with her husband on the south coast of Massachusetts.
