Deb’s Dozen: Mystery and Suspense—Doctor’s Car Explodes—He and New Girlfriend in Danger?

I love Richard L. Mabry’s books. Doctor’s Dilemma is a novella replete with mystery and suspense, but not his usual full-length novel. As a result, the pace is faster, the details sketchier, the denouement more quickly reached. All that to say I wasn’t ready for the book to end. I’d become attached to the characters and wanted there to be more—more interaction between them and more future.

Dr. Tyler Gentry has recently finished his residency. He’d fully expected to return to his hometown and enter practice with his father. But, his dad and his mom had been killed in a plane crash and suddenly, his plans for paying back his med school debts was in a shamble. In addition to the pain from the loss of his parents, he faces additional debt. His father had recently signed a demand note for three hundred thousand dollars and forged Tyler’s signature—now Tyler was a half a million dollars in debt!

Because he’d been going to go into his father’s practice, Tyler hadn’t looked into other possible positions and now almost all of the good ones are gone. So, when Dr. William Hall offers him a position with his group of surgeons, Tyler takes the job. The job sounds almost too good to be true. How does the saying go? If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And the night before he starts, he gets a three-a.m. call warning him that joining the Hall group could be hazardous to his health—he should get out while he can.

At the hospital during surgery, he meets operating room nurse, Ashley Wynn, to whom he feels an instant connection. He asks her out and over time they become close. After their first coffee shop date, as they’re on their way to Tyler’s car, the car explodes into a ball of flame.

Tyler and Ashley, along with Detectives Brent and Rios, try to figure out why Tyler has been targeted—and what the mystery is with the Hall group. The Doctor’s Dilemma—stay or go?

Albeit short, you’ll love this medical mystery novella—and you’ll want to purchase the rest of Dr. Mabry’s books. Four stars.

Richard L. Mabry MD is a retired physician who writes what he calls “medical suspense with heart.” He has written ten novels and three novellas along with one nonfiction book, The Tender Scar, written after the loss of his first wife. He has won the Selah Award for Lethal Remedy, and his books have been finalists in several other Award competitions. He loves to golf and has had the same partner for ten years. Additionally, like most writers, he is a voracious reader—mainly fiction. Find out more about Dr. Mabry at rmabry.com.

Dr. Mabry gave me a copy of Doctor’s Dilemma, but I was in no way obligated to write a favorable review.