Book Review: Deadly Errors

Deadly Errors

By Allen Wyler
ISBN-10: 0765313111
ISBN-13: 978-0765313119
Hardcover, 336 pages
July 14, 2005

I was really grateful to Astor and Blue for the opportunity to read and review the book Deadly Errors by Allen Wyler.  If  you enjoy the mystery/thriller genre of novels, I highly recommend this book! Truly!  Head on over to buy it here or here! 

In this book, Dr. Allen Wyler, has successfully wedded the computer industry and the medical profession in a tightly woven novel that keeps the reader involved from the first page.  Among medical thrillers, the most frightening plots are those in which anyone who enters the hospital could become a victim. Deadly Errors is that kind of book.

The main character, Surgeon Dr. Matthews, is struggling with a sinking marriage while trying to discover the real cause of patient's deaths. A new company has joined his hospital, offering a sophisticated software program designed to track medications for the benefit of both doctor and patient. Dr. Matthews believes a bug is in the system which causes errors but cannot locate the right contacts to address the problem. The hospital judges his skills, or lack of them, to be the cause and he is released. Wyler has the enviable talent to present medical information that is easy to understand by a non-medical audience.

The idea of a computerized quality control system gone haywire so that it randomly changes medication orders with lethal consequences is about the worst kind of scenario a prospective patient could face. It is completely frightening to think that anybody could be the next victim,  Here, if you're checked in, you could be next. It's a great hook for a story.  And the idea that one person is trying to sort out what is happening and nobody will listen was intriguing.  

With realistic detailed characters, plenty of scene description and an excellent premise, the author has created a twisting tale of greed, deception, and the low value some would place on human life. Allen Wyler is a renowned neurosurgeon who earned an international reputation for pioneering surgical techniques to record brain activity. He has served on the faculties of both the University of Washington and the University of Tennessee, and in 1992 was recruited by the prestigious Swedish Medical Center to develop a neuroscience institute. And in this novel, he shares the risks of technology and the consequences should the technology fail while providing an excellent mystery read.

This is a fast paced novel that engages the reader from the first page and carries through, well written and carefully plotted with believable dialogue and characters drawn with a fine pen.  Overall, I really found this book enthralling and it kept me guessing right to the very end.