Bodily Harm
A David Sloane Mystery
Robert Dugoni
Review: Seattle attorney David Sloane's most recent multi-million dollar winning medical malpractice suit against a physician doesn't sit well with him when he learns someone else may have been responsible for a young boy's death in Bodily Harm, the third legal thriller in this series by Robert Dugoni.
After 6-year-old Justin McFarland's death, all the facts pointed to his pediatrician, Dr. Peter Douvalidis, misdiagnosing his case. While on his way to hear the jury verdict, Sloane is accosted outside the courthouse by a man who tells him, "The doctor did not kill that boy. I did. And if something isn't done soon there is a possibility more children will die." The man is Kyle Horgan, a toy designer, who hands Sloane an envelope of sketches for the action figure Metamorphis, manufactured and sold by the Kendall Toy Company. Also enclosed is a newspaper article reporting on the death of a 4-year-old boy with symptoms remarkably similar to those of Justin McFarland. Sloane would normally write the man off as a crank, but he soon learns that the Kendall Toy Company is the target of a takeover by a competitor, Galaxy Toys, who sees in Metamorphis a billion dollar franchise. In order to maximize both the product's profit potential and thus a higher price for the company, Kendall shifts production to China, where material standards are looser. With this new information, Sloane takes a closer look into Justin's death -- absent Horgan, who has disappeared -- and discovers a world of greed, lies, corruption and murder lies behind the facade of a simple toy.
Bodily Harm is an exciting thriller populated with crisply drawn characters. David Sloane makes for a winsome protagonist, an attorney with a drive to succeed but where success isn't always measured in dollars and cents. His values and his family are important to him, not worth risking at the expense of the truth. But take risks he does. The story is driven and compelling -- readers with children will no doubt take a second look at what's in their toy chest -- with a good balance of courtroom drama and real world action ... and the bonus of an unexpected conclusion.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Bodily Harm.
Acknowledgment: Simon & Schuster provided a copy of Bodily Harm for this review.
Review Copyright © 2010 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Selected reviews of other mysteries by this author …
Wrongful Death
Touchstone (Hardcover), April 2009
ISBN-13: 9781416591009; ISBN-10: 1416591001
Location(s) referenced in Bodily Harm: Seattle, Washington
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Bodily Harm by Robert Dugoni
Publisher: Touchstone
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 1-4165-9296-2
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-9296-9
Publication Date: May 2010
List Price: $25.00
Synopsis (from the publisher): David Sloane and his new partner, Tom Pendergrass, win a big malpractice case centered on the death of a young child. But on the heels of this seeming victory, an unlikely character—toy designer Kyle Horgan— comes forward to tell Sloane that he’s gotten it all wrong: Horgan’s the one who’s truly responsible for the little boy’s death and possibly others—not the pediatrician Sloane has just proven guilty.
Ordinarily, Sloane might have dismissed such a person as a crackpot, but something about this case has always troubled him—something that he couldn’t quite pinpoint. When Sloane tries to follow up with Horgan, he finds the man’s apartment a shambles— ransacked by unknown perpetrators. Horgan has vanished without a trace. Together with his longtime investigative partner Charles Jenkins, Sloane reexamines his clients’ son’s death and digs deeper into Horgan’s claims, forcing him to enter the billion-dollar, cutthroat toy industry. As Sloane gets closer to the truth, he trips a wire that leads to a shocking chain of events that nearly destroys him.To get to the bottom of it all and find justice for the families harmed, Sloane must keep in check his overwhelming desire for revenge.
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