1. How did you experience the book?

[John]

1. How did you experience the book? Were you engaged immediately, or did it take you a while to "get into it"? How did you feel reading it—amused, sad, disturbed, confused, bored...?

[John]

In general I was engaged pretty quickly and enjoyed the book. I like thrillers and O'Gorman has the elements of an enjoyable thriller here, including quite a few red herrings, some more successful than others, but it could have used some stronger editorial advice. A few aspects of the book were very distracting, though in general they didn't keep me from enjoying it:
- the unscientific response of the hospital to the surge in deaths was puzzling, but not impossible (sadly, not all doctors are really scientists, which is a state of mind as much as anything else); and
- where were the cops? When Raul is fired on suspicion of the deaths, no one thinks to call the cops? This is a hospital corporation without a single lawyer on their staff savvy enough to understand their liability if Raul kills someone else?

[John]

I want to add a thought - when de la Toure was told his operating privileges were being suspended, I thought O'Gorman captured the anguish and difficulty for both sides quite well. My dad is a retired surgeon and probably retired a few years too soon. He had been Chief of Staff at one of the hospitals in town and said the worst thing he ever had to do was suspend a fellow surgeon's operating privileges. He was an older guy whose whole life was surgery and just couldn't recognize his own decline. My dad swore he would never put either himself or another Chief through the same process. Given his background, I suspect O'Gorman has been close to similar events.

[Jill]

I had trouble keeping all the characters straight; when the real killer was revealed, I had no clear memory at all of that character, and I found what happened immediately afterward totally unbelievable. Joe grew on me, though I often wanted to shake him for being so heedless, selfish, ambitious, flirting, depressed, unbelieving...Relieved and glad he came around.

[C.D.]

The first couple of chapters reeled me in. The prose are fluid. Joe has depth. His deaf wife is a memorable secondary character.

As I move through the book though, I'm struggling to remember who is who among the large cast of characters. There are so many names thrown out there, I've given up on keeping them straight. Unfortunately, this makes sections of dialogue and interaction less meaningful to me. For what it's worth, I had the same complaint about Game of Thrones. If you can keep all the characters straight in that book, then Fatal Rhythm will be a breeze.

Despite being halfway through a competently written book, I'm not feeling a lot of suspense or thrills. Hopefully, they're on their way.