Sometimes People Die: A SUNDAY TIMES Crime Book of the Month and NEW YORK TIMES Editor Pick

Product Information

I especially liked the inclusion of short chapters that dealt with real-life medical murderers, these are an interesting addition and goes to prove that whilst the story is fictional, it's by no way unbelievable. This book was expertly written and had the perfect pace. I loved all the details and how accurate the medical knowledge was . The twist was one I could not see coming and was quite floored. I’ve worked as a writer on various films including Pixar’s LUCA, PADDINGTON 2, and my own THE ELECTRICAL LIFE OF LOUIS WAIN. Like every other screenwriter in Hollywood, I have a bottom drawer full of unproduced scripts. I thoroughly enjoyed this - despite the trauma of a trip down memory lane from having worked in British hospitals myself only a few years before the time it’s set. The writing is brilliant, and the observations astute - only actual doctors know the pressures that distort your thinking to the point where incarceration can seem preferable to going to work: “I found myself inevitably thinking again about what my life in prison might be like. I did not seem likely to do well there, but consoled myself that perhaps I could ingratiate myself to the other inmates by providing them medical care. Beyond that, the sole upside I could think of was that I would at least no longer have to work nights.” Like Stephenson himself, his main protagonist is a Scot who moves to London to work. Hopefully that’s where the similarities end.

I’m not sure there is a lot more I can say without giving away spoilers. Overall, I really enjoyed this novel. It’s unique – reading almost like the protagonist’s diary if makes sense. Which of the medical professionals our protagonist has encountered is behind the murders? And can our unnamed narrator’s version of the events be trusted? A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and Hanover Square Press in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! *** If you open this book thinking it’s a medical thriller—which is how it’s marketed—then you’ll be terribly disappointed. But take it on its own terms and it is one of the most evocative and heart-rendering tales you’ll have encountered in quite a while. A young Scottish doctor, caught stealing and using opioids, is deemed fit to return to practice and lands in St. Luke’s—one of London’s roughest hospitals and a place that’s desperately in need of staff. Author Stephenson was trained as a doctor, and this book goes deeply—and fascinatingly—into life in the hospital. Add to this a great cast of characters, including George, an orthopedist, rugby player, and teddy bear of a man who rooms with our protagonist, helping to keep him grounded. Dystopian Fiction Books Everyone Should Read: Explore The Darker Side of Possible Worlds and Alternative Futures

Thanks to Harlequin Trade Publishing, the author and NetGalley for the ARC. I am voluntarily leaving my honest review*

Thoroughly recommended, this will keep you on the edge of your seat and desperate to find out what happens next. SUMMARY: Scottish physician became addicted to pain pills after an accident. He gets a second chance at a busy hospital in London. Soon after he begins working there, the hospital falls under scrutiny for a higher percentage of deaths, leading to a police investigation and the eventual capture of one of his coworkers who confesses to one of the (16?) patient murders. The perp and ending situations I half guessed. But they are unusual and I doubt others with get more than 30% of it, because the whole is outlier. But you might if you have a lot of Psych. training. I’m looking forward to seeing what Simon does next. Oh, I also wanted to say this would make either a great movie or TV series… just saying. Well, I recommend if you don't mind reading about addicts. That's embedded. But it is probably closest to the truth of some particular experiences that I have come across in out of 100's of these moderns. This one isn't obnoxious people either. You should know that. In fact, 75% of them are wonderful in the breech humans.I’d not read any of Simon Stephenson’s previous books so I didn’t know what to expect. The premise however intrigued me so I was eager to get started. The pace was steady but there was a little too much hospital jargon for my liking in the first half of the book. The characters were a little flat. There's lots of medical murders and murderers. There's historical parts that were quite interesting to read about, they covered doctors who were also killers. I did not see the twist coming. Wow. This is an intriguing idea for a novel: a drug addled doctor finds himself in an underfunded/staffed hospitals where there is a growing list of suspicious deaths. This is a mystery of who is killing the patients; it’s a suspense in that our narrator, the drug addled physician is the one we are relying on to figure it out. Can the narrator keep clean and sus it out?

Simon has worked as a writer on various films including Pixar’s LUCA, PADDINGTON 2, and his own THE ELECTRICAL LIFE OF LOUIS WAIN. Like every other screenwriter in Hollywood, he has a bottom drawer full of unproduced scripts and forgotten promises. So it goes. Loved this read. For the first quarter I would have given it 5 stars. It got nihilistic during the last quarter which took it down about 1/2 star. But this book TRULY did make me laugh out loud about 7 or 8 times in a dreary fall gloom rainfall darkness. No small task.

Simon Stephenson Press Reviews

It looked like an asylum that a distracted child had constructed from a half dozen unmatched Lego sets." (St. Luke's- the hospital where he is hired.) My new novel, ‘Sometimes People Die’ will be published in September 2022. It's a literary thriller set in a hospital in east London around the turn of the millenium. Author Simon Stephenson was a physician who turned into a screenplay writer, and now author of “Sometimes People Die”. Our narrator informs us, at a hospital, people die. Some deaths garner a shrug, some a head shake. Not all are alarming, especially if the person was very ill, elderly, or frail. But when statistically unlikely “early” deaths occur, the hospital takes note.

What I especially loved is how medically heavy it was. Such a great change of pace! The Scottish narrator was also a dream. Love the authors bio here on GR as well. And with modern day examples such as Harold Shipman , who knows how many more are yet to be uncovered, if ever? Our unnamed lead character is a Scottish doctor. He's recently returned to medicine after serving a suspension for stealing opioids from his previous hospital. The only job he can find is at St Luke's Hospital in London; a struggling place, which is understaffed with overworked medics. It's a place that welcomes any doctor, no matter what's happened in their past. When too many patients die under his watch, a troubled young doctor suspects murder. But are his instincts to be trusted? Let Not The Waves Of The Sea’’, my memoir about losing my brother came out in 2012. It won Best First Book at the Scottish Book Awards, and was serialized on BBC Radio 4.

A triumph, Sometimes People Die wouldn’t be the easiest book to transfer to the screen, but I’m hoping Stephenson himself will accept the challenge. Simon is from Edinburgh in Scotland, but now lives in Los Angeles having had stopovers along the way in London and San Francisco. The author's history as a hospital doctor shines through in his writing. The description of place and people, the extraordinary setting of overworked medics, dealing with constant exhaustion and unexpected deaths reads so well. There's also that humour that I mentioned, a welcome addition to a story that could be bogged down with the darkest of themes. My new novel, ‘ Sometimes People Die’ will be published in September 2022. It’s a literary thriller set in a hospital in east London around the turn of the millenium. There is a grit to this novel as well as a thread of dark humour as these doctors and medical professionals try to get through their shifts in a profession I know I could never be in and have utter respect for.