Code 15

By Gary Birken
Jove, $7.99, 401 pages

Code 15 weaves a murder mystery based upon the human drive for revenge and retribution together with the reality of medical care–where the leading cause of death is medical errors. Dr. Morgan Connolly is the Chief of Emergency Medicine at Dade Presbyterian Hospital who starts having a bad run of luck. She loses a couple patients and withstands the irate harangue of a distraught father. Then her own father dies from a random attack. Her emergency room begins to have a string of deaths related to medical errors that are so severe they are termed Code 15 and require reporting to the state authorities. Soon, her superiors begin to think her grief is an obstacle to her ability to perform as the hospital Chief of Emergency Medicine. In her frustration at lack of progress identifying her father’s killer, she investigates on her own and determines the rash of Code 15 deaths is related. Gary Birken effectively carries the reader along, introducing new information and slowly weaving an interesting mystery that is a race for Dr. Connolly to acquire the proof to put away the man she thinks murdered her father and the Code 15 patients.

Reviewed by Vicki Hudson