Rubbernecker

Starred review from August 10, 2015
British author Bauer's highly original mystery boasts two unusual protagonists. The first is Sam Galen, a man in a coma ("I'm asleep and I cannot tell you how hard I try to wake up"). The other is Patrick Fort, who has Asperger's syndrome. Patrick has trouble interacting with people, but thanks to a disability quota, he has been admitted as a medical student to Cardiff University in Wales. In an anatomy class, Patrick and four other students learn to dissect a cadaver (identified only by number) and discover the cause of death. Patrick risks everything to make the correct diagnosis, even when his efforts could not only get him expelled but also threaten his life. Bauer (Blacklands) brilliantly captures both the horror and helplessness of Sam's being mentally alive in an unresponsive body, as well as the mystification Patrick suffers in virtually all dealings with others. Even without the author's absorbing storytelling, this standalone deserves attention for sheer inventiveness. Agent: Jane Gregory, Gregory & Company (U.K.).

March 15, 2015

British author Bauer made off with the 2010 Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger Award for Crime Novel of the Year for her first novel, Blacklands, and was short-listed for the 2012 CWA Dagger in the Library Award for outstanding body of work. Her two novels published here, Blacklands and Darkside, got shining reviews but little traction. With this title, a 2014 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, her new American publisher is working hard to bring her the audience she deserves. For Bauer's protagonist, Patrick, the daily grind of being a medical student is complicated by Asperger's syndrome. But perhaps his condition gives him special insight, since the body he's examining seems to be telling him something highly suspect about the lab where he's working.

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