Book Review of The Surgeon

Join Karl and Em for their weekly episode as they review The Surgeon by Leslie Wolfe.

1. What are your thoughts on Dr. Bolinger?

2. How did you feel about Mr. Mayor?

3. How do you feel about the ending?

We can’t wait to dive in and Karl ‘Em Like We Read Them. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok for extra content and book announcements. We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Trigger Warnings: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Infidelity, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Murder, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Disclaimers: This episode will contain spoilers. We promise to give you all our honest options and we mean no harm to any authors.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello everyone. I'm Carl. I'm M. Welcome to our podcast discussing all the latest books.

(00:20):
This is season 2 episode 4 and we will be discussing The Surgeon by Leslie Wolfe.
As always, we'll save our ratings until the very end.
We promise to give you all of our honest opinions on all the characters, chapters, and scenarios.
We don't mean any harm to any of the authors, this is solely our opinion and as always we

(00:43):
promise to Carl and Mike we read them. Period.
Again, spoilers will lie ahead, trigger warnings, and there are a lot.
So bear with me and make sure you take care of yourself while reading this book because it's a thriller.
So there's a lot. Anyways, here's the list.
Child abuse, child death, death in general, domestic abuse, domestic violence, emotional abuse, gun violence, infidelity, misogyny, pedophilia, physical abuse, sexual assault, sexism, sexual content, sexual violence,

(01:16):
self-harm, suicide, toxic relationships, violence in general, medical content, grief, medical trauma, stalking, murder, abandonment, and injury slash injury detail, drug use, blood, and alcohol use.
It's pretty extensive. I will say that only a couple of them are mentioned multiple times.

(01:38):
None of it goes into great detail.
So the assault that's referenced is assault of a child, but it doesn't go into grave detail about that.
But still, as always, take care of yourselves.
If you don't want to hear how this book ends, please pause here, go read the book and come back to this episode.

(01:58):
Are you ready to get started?
Let's get into it.
Also, I just wanted to add before we get started, I wore my cute little shirt for our Halloween vibe.
This episode comes out right before Halloween.

(02:20):
I don't know.
It's about two weeks before Halloween.
Okay, so I'm going to read the blurb for the book and I read this on KU.
So I don't have a book to hold up just so you know, but that also means that you could read it on KU.
There.
I didn't know you bought it.
I've had it for a while.
It looks really digital when you're holding it like that.
That's great.
That's weird.

(02:41):
It's a good printed.
It's a good cover.
It definitely looks can be deceiving.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Okay, so here's the blurb.
Trusted Sergeant, loving wife, murderer.
Before my world came crashing down, I had it all.
The successful career I dreamed of, the beautiful red brick home where I could relax in front of the fire,

(03:01):
the handsome devoted husband whose blue eyes and charming smile always made me feel safe.
As I call time of death, my voice is steady.
My colleagues stand hushed around me, their eyes on me, confused, concerned.
I have never lost a patient until today.
My hands tremble inside their gloves.
I slide down the cold, tiled walls, my heart racing in my chest.

(03:22):
I have never hated a patient until today.
But what choice did I have once I recognized him?
And what will I do to protect myself if someone learns the truth?
A Kindle number one in Amazon's charts bestseller, the surgeon is a totally gripping psychological thriller
that will have you racing through the pages, gasping for breath until the final jaw dropping twist.

(03:44):
If you love freedom McFadden, Sherry Lapina and the girl in the train, you won't be able to put this down.
So I'm just going to preface before we get into this episode.
Two things.
First, when I read that blurb, I thought it meant she killed her husband.
She operated on her husband and killed her husband.
So I came into this real confused because that's not what the book's about.
Two, totally gripping, racing through the pages, gasping for breath until the final jaw dropping twist is a lie.

(04:11):
That sounds really hateful and I don't mean to be hateful.
There's really no twist.
You see it come in the entire time almost.
There's one little thing at the end that like, oh, finally, that kind of makes sense.
Like where she connects to this whole story.
But it's not a twist, and it doesn't really change anything to be quite right.
I'm going to have a very negative opinion probably throughout this book.
I'm going to apologize for that now.
It won't be as bad as the twin.

(04:33):
So there's positives, but this is not a book that I would actually recommend for someone else to read.
It's OK.
Just not that great.
So there's that.
I love that's where the story lies in your ranking.
It's not as bad as the twin or the lovely bones, which the lovely bones.
I didn't hate as much as you did, but it was so philosophical.

(04:55):
And that's not what I wanted it to be.
That's why I didn't like it as much.
But this one is very mediocre for a thriller.
That's the best way I can describe it.
It's not bad.
It's just mediocre.
It's not jaw dropping.
It's not page turning.
As we get into it, I'll talk about it more, but that could be like some of the tropes
that were included that kind of made it less interesting for me.
So we'll see.

(05:25):
The blurb is very similar to what my summary would be for the first part of the book.
So we're not going to repeat.
It is a book about Anne Wiley, who is a doctor.
And it also goes into the perspective of Paula Fusiliere, which is a defense or
assisted district attorney.
Yeah, she's an ASA.

(05:46):
It kind of goes back and forth between these two perspectives, which makes it a little
bit confusing in my opinion, just because it's like they have a storyline together
and then they have their own storylines going separately.
We start off the first chapter.
And sorry, before we dive in, I just had a question.
I listened to it.
So I got two different voices.
I knew who was talking, but then I jumped into reading the last 10 chapters and it doesn't

(06:10):
say who's talking at the beginning of the chapter.
Is that how your book was as well?
I don't think it did.
Like it has a chapter title, but it doesn't say like because I remember now that you say
that because I actually read it on my Kindle Unlimited and then I didn't read the paperback,
but the paperback does not have the person's name either, which obviously one of them talks

(06:33):
about the hospital and then one talks about the ASA's office or whatever the ASA's office.
I just thought that was weird, though, that it didn't.
It should still identify.
I get we can pick it up ourselves, but I feel like it needs to identify.
Yeah, I think that's part of it that made it a little bit more confusing for me just
because I would be like maybe starting to get invested in like one side of the story

(06:53):
and then it flips.
And then I'm like, wait, that doesn't make sense.
What just happened?
Oh wait, hold on.
It's a whole different person.
So it's very confusing as well.
We start off where Anne is in the operating room and she has a 59 year old male with an
aortic aneurysm on her table for surgical repair.
His name is Caleb Donahue.

(07:14):
Donahue, Donahue.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And she has her team surrounding her, which is comprised of Madison Leachin, Tom Crosley,
and Dr. Bollinger, the anesthesiologist.
She pinpoints the fact that she has called time of death on this man.
And part of it was after she seen his face, which had been shaved and clean shaven and

(07:37):
everything on her table, she realized she recognized him.
And so she does attempt some life saving measures, but she ultimately decides to call
time of death, which it is according to the rest of the book, her first ever person that
she has had die on her table, which I get the impression it's been several years that
she's been at this job.

(07:59):
And it was impressive for that to be the case even later on in the book, fellow peers also
mentioned that it was very impressive that she had not had anybody die on her table up
to this point.
But it's been like two decades.
Yeah.
Mr. or Dr. Bollinger anesthesiologist starts berating in the operating room over her choice

(08:19):
of not continuing life saving measures, calling her weak, using some very vulgar wording just
because she's a woman in the medical field, which is the first, I guess, confusing side
plot that gets added is like this misogynistic kind of character.

(08:40):
And random old white man that nobody cares about.
To me, it was something that could have been left out and we get further into that later.
I didn't feel like it added anything to the story or anything like that, especially when
you find out he's not the one that reported her.
I definitely don't feel like it added anything to the story other than the fact that you
got a little bit of mystery who actually reported her, but we already knew the answer.

(09:06):
Yeah.
I mean, I guess we didn't technically know about Lee.
Yeah.
But like, it didn't, it didn't change anything.
Like we knew she was bound to determine a to find something anyways and B, we knew she
was talking to her husband.
Yeah.
It was very unnecessary and really hateful the way the wording was made.

(09:29):
I don't know if it was a ploy to like make her feel insignificant about herself or doubt
herself and her skills more.
I'm not quite sure what the necessity other than the fact to add somebody that could possibly
have been the person that reported her to the story.
I agree.
It didn't feel necessary.
So then we get introduced to Paula Fusiliere, which she just in the first chapter we meet

(09:52):
her, she is getting promoted and she is put on a job training with a one year probation
to be promoted to an ASA.
She is celebrating the promotion with her team, which is comprised with Marie, who is
her assistant and Adam, who is her investigator.
She receives a text with a coded message to report to a hotel room to meet up with who

(10:15):
she calls Mr. Mayor, which is kind of another side plot that kind of just goes crazy, which
is not really the cheating or the sleeping with Mr. Mayor for me.
That was kind of the, because I mean, that made sense with the storyline, but the whole
fact of like, she's basically she got this promotion and now she's going to add things

(10:39):
to his run for mayor and she was going to add like benefit to him and like all of that
kind of like mutual beneficiary stuff is why we're kind of sleeping together is kind of
how she put it.
I felt was unnecessary as well to add to the story.
It was a lot of additional things that were added for sure, but that's only like chapter
three.

(11:00):
So a lot of things added in and three chapters.
It took me for a loop to even know it was going to be like a dual perspective with her
and another woman.
Yeah.
Again, I came into it thinking she killed her husband.
I thought maybe he might have been cheating.
Maybe that's why she killed him.
Yeah.
But I, the way I read it, like when it said the loving wife for me, like I thought that

(11:21):
meant she killed her husband.
So I was very, I was very confused coming into this.
All of a sudden this other woman pops up, making some random man for dinner.
It was, and then goes to some random hotel room with a Mr. Mayor.
Yeah.
I'm, let's say this too.
I despise the cheating trope.

(11:41):
I despise it, especially when it's not resolved in an appropriate way.
Not a fan.
I think it's probably honestly ruined the book for me from the get go.
I don't want to read about some woman sleeping with some other woman's wife.
I have no interest in that.
And I honestly, I don't, did it add to the story in some ways?

(12:02):
Like it made sense.
That's how she found out about this and that.
But she also could have just targeted her on her own.
She didn't have to sleep with the husband.
I don't know.
Also, I think it was an additional thing of like trying to destroy Anne's life.
I get why Paula did it.
I just mean the writer when she was writing it.
I think that was just her thought process of putting it in there, but again, it was
just another additional thing that didn't have to be there.

(12:24):
You could have just had this woman that's just like gung-ho after the stalker and you're
just the whole entire time trying to figure out why.
Yeah.
I think it actually would have been more interesting if the affair wasn't mixed in.
Because the affair sort of like mixed her motive a little bit more.
And I would have rather been an entirely separate motive that we were trying to guess the entire

(12:49):
time.
Yeah.
Because the entire time she was kind of going of, oh, he doesn't love me.
He doesn't want to be with me.
He's never going to leave his wife.
Yeah.
In the end, it was pretty much like, I don't care if you leave her or not.
I'm going to get retribution for this situation.
Yeah.
And it was the whole like, it was the weird like, he married into money.

(13:09):
And so obviously he's never going to leave her.
But then she'd be like the next day and be like, but what?
Will he leave her?
Does he love me?
But he's never going to leave his wife.
And then, okay, I'm going to shoot the wife.
And in my messed up brain, I think he's going to want me after I shoot his wife.
Yeah.
But then I also don't care if he wants me or not.
Because I'm going to get.
I needed her to pick one.

(13:30):
Yeah.
And quite frankly, I wanted to punch her in her face.
There's a little shout out at the beginning of the book that she had somebody help her
with the legal side of this and the medical side of this.
I don't know who to talk with the legal, but there are some holes.
I'm not going to get into them.
Cause like I said, I don't think the book is honestly more thrilling.

(13:51):
I felt like a waste of my time to be quite frank, which is really harsh.
And I'm sorry, but it was just very, very mediocre.
And it didn't seem that thought out seemed very simple.
I just didn't enjoy that.
There were some holes.
I think there was a whole lot of it, to be honest.
Yeah.
I have a ton of questions.

(14:11):
This is how you know you didn't like a book.
Normally with silent patient, I walked away with so many questions and I want to know.
I walked away with so many questions from this book and I don't care to know.
To be honest, I really kind of agree.
I'm sorry, but that's how I feel.
I'm going to be honest.
I even took it a step further.

(14:32):
I didn't, I had a question while I was reading it and then I forgot the question because
I really didn't care about.
So I walked away with no questions because I just didn't care to know about them.
Well, you had good elements that could have made a really good book.
I agree.
I think she just added so many qualities of like different.

(14:55):
I mean, we had romance been cheating.
We had thriller.
We had sexual assault.
We had doctor perspective.
Then we had a murderer on the two murderers basically.
And then we had whether or not it was justified.
Then you have this friendship thing.
Then you have like a friend portraying the kid being a witness and then the kid getting
shot.

(15:16):
Yeah.
And then we have a boss situation.
I mean, it was just everything you could throw at this book.
I feel like it was thrown in there.
It wasn't hard to keep up with, but everything got spoiled.
Like you already knew by a chapter two later, like why it was in there.
And it just, it wasn't like good intrigue to continue reading.

(15:36):
To me, a mystery psychological suspense thriller should have something that like at the very
end should be like, Oh my God, like I never saw it coming.
I totally saw it 10 chapters ago that she was going to be holding them at gunpoint at
some point.
And yes, it was a surprise that she was Melanie's sister, but the rest of it did not surprise
me.
And that didn't add anything to the story.

(15:56):
No, that's the problem.
The problem is whatever the twist is, it's supposed to make everything else make sense.
This didn't.
No.
I think that she was a jealous mistress.
Correct.
I agree.
Also, my thing, the like, I hate her because she's had a perfect life and gotten everything

(16:18):
she's ever wanted.
She's ever worked hard for anything in her life and like, I've had to live this horrible
life and oh, woe is me.
And like now I fight for the underdog as an ASA.
I'm sorry.
I'm on the other side of that line.
So I have a totally different opinion about who fights for the people.
And also so childish.
You're 40 years old.
I do not want to read about you talking to yourself like that.

(16:41):
Grow up.
Yeah, I literally grow up.
Then like to add that the doctor liked to be whipped in bed.
What did that add to the story or that the husband liked to be straddled by Paula and
road?
What did that add to the story?
Yeah, I was like, are we trying to go like the smut?
Like we're supposed to like be adding some smut in here?

(17:02):
Like what, what are we like?
I can't think there had to be a death between.
So again, coming into it, I thought maybe the husband died.
Then as I was reading it, I was like, Oh, what if and dies?
What if he kills her to like covered all up and then they plant, they, you know, they
plant it together and that's how they, you know, then I kept thinking like maybe that's
where it was going to go.
That would have been more interesting to me.

(17:23):
Yeah.
That's not where it went.
I thought he's going to just wrap the bed around her neck and strangle her.
That's not where it went.
Nope.
So I just kept waiting for like, when something interesting actually going to happen.
Yeah.
To be quite frank.
Now Caleb Donahue, Donahue, whatever his name is, he got what he deserved.

(17:44):
Period.
But anyways.
So Anne is, we go back into the chapter with her where she is trying to figure out why
the heart still had not made any movements to beat after all the lifesaving measures.
And that kind of becomes her main storyline for the rest of the book.

(18:05):
Her anxiety and paranoia and part of that is trying to figure out what exactly happened.
Yeah.
So then Paula says how she meets up with Mr. Mayor a couple of times a week.
They believe they're mutually beneficial for each other and sharing information, especially
now that she's ASA.
And we end up back in the Anna's perspective where she's having a hard time coming to the

(18:30):
realization that she's lost her first patient and she starts replaying moments in her head
from the surgery.
And then she also has kind of a flashback where she is learning how to perform sutures
from her father on Thanksgiving day.
That was also an unnecessary flashback in my mind.
Really didn't give us any context.
It was about a whole chapter of her just learning how to suture a turkey only for her to ask

(18:54):
her question of, you know, what would he think about my situation now?
It was unnecessary.
Didn't add anything whatsoever.
Well, and part of my overall issue with like the husband and wife and then the husband
pillow talking with the mistress or whatever, there is a privilege that a husband and wife

(19:15):
have.
There's two of them actually, but one of them is marital communications where he could
not have testified against her to what she said to just him.
Now if somebody else was present, they could testify about what she said.
But between him and her, both parties have to consent to the testimony about marital

(19:36):
communications.
So it's like a little, just a little piece there that had the back of my mind the entire
time that she's wrong and would destroy most of this book to be quite frank.
So I don't know who the person was talking to about the legal side of it, but I couldn't
get that out of my head.
So every time it was like, well, her husband said this to this or whatever, said this to
her husband and I was like, but that doesn't matter.
Yeah.

(19:57):
Because it can't be talked about.
Especially the ending.
I thought that at the end I was like, okay, which I mean, I only brushed it off as the
fact that she's a surgeon.
He's the legal person.
So maybe that's where she didn't know that existed, but that's how I wrote it off was
that maybe he just knew she wouldn't know about it.
But also, I don't know if she's that educated.

(20:19):
I feel like it would, I don't know.
I have a hard time believing that she wouldn't know that, but maybe not.
Maybe that's how we can make it make sense is that at least that part.
Yeah.
The rest of it, but even, even Paula should have known that from the beginning.
So Paula knew anything she said couldn't be used.
Anything he said to Paula couldn't be used.

(20:41):
If I'm honest, a lot of what Paula said or did just went in one ear and out the other.
You know, the entire time I would, the only thought that came through my head was how
the heck did she get the ASA position?
Yeah, I had more legal knowledge than she did.
Yeah.
And I didn't go to anything but criminal justice.

(21:02):
Yeah.
So, yeah, I don't understand how a lot of it made sense.
And even like when your investigator is like, Hey, I think you're overstepping a lot of
lines and I don't really trust your opinion.
Yeah.
You know, I feel like that's the point.
And then we don't even know if he's the one that reported him, her to Mitch.
We just assume that that's what she assumes it.

(21:24):
But yeah.
No, I hardly agree.
I can't think.
And here's the thing.
Okay.
And I know some people probably love to believe that like the state is really on their side.
I don't agree with that, but whatever.
She's not going out and investigating a single thing on her own.
That is not how it works.
At all.
And the fact that she did, okay, at the end when the, when her boss finally called her

(21:49):
out and she was like, you were sleeping with her husband on government time.
Yeah.
How could you possibly try to justify that?
Yeah.
She was like, well, it was interviews.
Yeah.
Then none of those interviews can count because you were writing him when he was telling you
what she supposedly said.
So none of that's admissible.
And it's not admissible anyways.

(22:10):
I just kind of get madder and madder.
I was like, this is so stupid.
Well, I mean, he made the point that nothing that she collected on this case would basically
been able to use because even the people that she interviewed from the hospital, she didn't
give them an opportunity to have representation for themselves.
No.
And she had been told to not, well, see, here's the problem.

(22:31):
So she was, that's why I said you're walking to fine line and talking about who they weren't
in a custodial investigation because that happens with the police.
The police are the people actually investigating.
So when she as an ASA went out there, she would have argued like, well, that doesn't even
qualify as custodial investigation because I can't arrest them.
I don't have that power, which is BS because she knew what she was doing.

(22:54):
And then she was informed to not communicate with anybody at the hospital unless counsel
was present.
And she disregarded that.
Yeah.
There's not a single thing that she learned that would have been admissible.
That's also why though, she was talking about the grand jury because you can present things
to a grand jury that you can't present at a trial, which is also BS, but whatever.
So it's like, I don't know.

(23:15):
That was running my mind this entire time.
And I was like, this is stupid.
Her husband should know that none of this is admissible.
So her husband should tell her not to be worried about it.
Does he do that?
No.
Yeah.
I don't know what law school they went to, but they do very good.
No.

(23:36):
And that went to a mediocre one.
There's a lot that even I knew and I didn't go.
I got tickled though at the end when she was like, there's only one of us that knows how
to kill somebody without leaving any evidence or something.
And that's me.
12 ways to stop a heart or something like that.
And I was like, girl, it ain't just you, baby.
Yeah.

(23:57):
It ain't just you.
He must not do criminal law because if he did criminal law, he would also know 12 ways
to stop a heart.
True.
And anyways, it was just ridiculous.
So Ann is in her paranoia state, panicking over time.
She hears sirens.
She has generally like convinced herself that she's killed this man by not continuing

(24:19):
life saving measures.
And she also has this random flashback about how she defined her husband proposing for
the first time and that she basically told them like they couldn't be together because
her career is demanding and he was like, well, so is mine.
And then they moved in together with her mom.

(24:40):
It was again, unnecessary storyline.
I guess they're trying to prove how like committed they've been to each other or.
I personally am kind of on policy whenever she's talking about how he's only with her
for the money kind of thing.
Like it kind of got that vibe from him.
But I don't know.

(25:01):
It was, he also gave a little bit too much to her and her mom for me to fully believe
that, but still it was, I don't know.
No, do you know how mad I would have been if I had supported financially supported his
run for mayor and then he comes home and threatens me to tell the truth about Caleb.
If I don't stay with him.
I would like you ankle me mayor.

(25:25):
My question too is how is he an attorney and not making bank?
Oh, well, that's a, he makes money now.
If he's working, if he's an attorney in Chicago, I don't care what he does.
He's making decent money.
Well, then why is the mom financially supporting his campaign run?
Because he's not making the level of money that they have.

(25:47):
But because of old money.
So like essentially it's been built up over.
But my thing is, is if he's living with her mom, he may have car payment, car insurance
and a phone.
Can't have that much.
That's fair.
I mean, he's bringing home a grand a month.
That's fair.
That's fair.
I agree.
And he's making.
Well, did it ever say specifically what?

(26:11):
Wait, doesn't he work in the governor's office?
I thought he was an attorney.
He, well, he is, but in the governor's office, I think, I don't remember because I thought
it said, I thought he worked for the current governor.
I don't know.
He might be in.

(26:32):
I don't know.
Anyways, if he's a government lawyer, maybe he's not making as much, but he's not like
a public defender.
So he's making decent money.
I can tell you that he might not be making millions, but he's making decent money.
Yeah.
For sure.
In the Chicago area as a lawyer without a doubt, but he kept talking about committee

(26:57):
meetings.
That's why he was staying late.
No, he was talking about going to like committee meetings and then like almost like a banquets
of sorts to like fund raising.
She's full of it.
She knew that.
She knew that's how he was doing coming home clean after a 12 hour day by and then she

(27:19):
was going to ask him to whopper with the belt.
What?
Yeah, which I'm not kink shaming.
You can do whatever you want to do.
It just didn't make sense in this context.
Not one bit.
So it was like.
And also.
Like my first thought was like, is it shown the difference between like with his wife,

(27:41):
like he's in charge, but it gets to be himself.
It's to let her be in charge with the mistress or whatever was, was that the point?
And where are we going to like somehow come out with that later and it be a big deal?
You know what I mean?
Like, but no, no, that didn't happen.
So I don't know.
It was weird.

(28:03):
Not sure at all.
It's weird.
So part two is Anna midst to Derek what she has done and he tells her to keep it to herself
and Anna's finding it that hard to do so considering there's a formal hearing and now there's a

(28:23):
random attorney looking into her patient's death with, with a tunnel vision approach.
The results are in Anne's favor at the hearing, but she doesn't feel good about it until she
figures out why the heart didn't beat.
So we get to the first part of the second part that Anne is sitting with Derek and she
admits to him that she had called an early time of death on her patient.

(28:46):
She also talks about how Paula is looking into her, her death and Derek basically tells
her to keep it quiet and he'll do some digging pretty much gives her no kind of solace in
the whole situation.
And at least he did tell his wife to not talk to anybody without an attorney person.
True.

(29:06):
What you would think would be common sense.
I also got that advice a couple other times and did not listen so.
Correct.
Because fun fact, anything she said to anybody other than her husband is admissible in court
because she's a part of the case.
So.
Well, and then we get the random belt whipping scene.

(29:28):
Well, I prefaced that with the exception obviously of if you want to call like an interrogation
if she was in, you know, that sort of thing.
But in general, if she said it to her nurse, yeah, that'd be admissible.
And then we get the random saying.
And then afterwards, Anne goes to visit the morgue and she, as she's sitting there kind
of looking at the man that died on her table, she starts having flashbacks about her sister,

(29:53):
Melanie and how she was very afraid of him on the way to the park one day, which again,
that was another storyline.
And I get why it was pertinent to Caleb dying, but there was so much subplots going on.
There was Caleb's death, why Caleb had to die, what happened with Melanie?

(30:16):
Then you also had Derek and Anne and their subplot.
Then you also had Anne and her mother.
And then you also had Derek and Anne's mother.
And then you had the cheating situation and you had Paula and her boss situation and Paula
and her investigator, Paula and her secretary.
Then you had Anne and her secretary and then you had Anne and Lee Jin and her super.
I mean, it was just so many subplots that it was just like, and each one of them, I

(30:43):
felt like she put so much time and effort into establishing it as an importance.
And literally none of it pretty much came important other than the fact that Caleb died.
Like it was just, it was a lot.
Well, and again, I'm going to, the legal in this was the fact that she shouted out somebody.

(31:04):
I'm concerned about that person.
I would love to know their actual involvement if they read the finished product and were
like, that's wrong.
Or if they just gave her some basics and she messed them up while writing, I don't know.
But like she talks about, and honestly, this is probably later on, but she talks about,
I'm stuck on and I can't get past it.
She talks about like the adoption paperwork for her sister.

(31:26):
Paula did that she couldn't get access to that.
That's a lie.
She's an ASA.
She could walk right to the clerk's office and get it easily.
I could any day of the week, like maybe it's different in Chicago than it is rural Southern
Illinois, but I highly doubt it, especially as a state's attorney.

(31:48):
Well, she technically just got promoted to that position.
So maybe that's why.
No, even as an ASA, guarantee you I would bet money on it.
Whether that's right or wrong is a different conversation, but I can tell you that we have
a system that everybody uses.

(32:12):
So I can tell you that it wouldn't be that difficult.
Got you.
Yeah, she could have found out very quickly and saved us all this time and effort.
But the idea of like her becoming a prosecutor to get back at them for adopting her sister.
Yeah, makes no sense.

(32:35):
Yeah.
Makes no sense.
Well, and the other part is what we were just talking about with her not talking without
counsel.
So and gets called to M's office, which M is her supervisor.
It was me.
Yeah.

(32:55):
It was makes emotions with her because there was one scene where she was like, oh, let me
help you.
But the rest of the time she was kind of, I would just hit that video calling out the
husband.
I was like, okay, I might like you now.
So she's told that there will be a formal hearing into the man's death, which is part
of I guess the procedure.

(33:16):
I don't, I'm not from the medical field to say that that happens every time.
But in this book, apparently that happens every time there is a death.
So in gives her strict instructions not to speak to anybody, including members, family
members and stuff without hospital counsel, which to me is also not right in my opinion

(33:36):
because the hospital council is going to protect the hospital rather than protect.
So I feel like she should have had her own separate council that the hospital was referring
her to and not to say, Hey, don't speak to anybody, including family members without
like our council.
Well the only thing about that is once they have said like, this is your attorney and they've

(34:01):
engaged in conversations about the case or whatever, there's that confidentiality hits.
And so even if the attorney then panicked and was like, Hey, we need to distance ourselves
from her, what the attorney already learned couldn't be used in the case.
Well, my biggest issue was the fact that she wasn't ever given, it didn't seem like a individual
conversation with just that attorney.

(34:22):
It was always present or another member of staff was always present with that.
So that kind of breaches in my mind, the attorney privilege, you know, client.
Yeah, that third party.
Yeah, party.
Yeah, they could have M testify about it.
Yeah.
There's some ways that depending on how M was present could technically might have protect

(34:46):
the confidentiality, but it is a risk.
And I do agree that she should have as soon as something happened, as soon as they found
ASA was involved, the hospital's council should have sought and out and had a conversation
with her.
So that council could essentially document that conversation.
Yeah.
And cover their tails in the long run.
That they advised her not to do something instead of she did it and now the hospital is stuck

(35:10):
with it because it's malpractice insurance or whatever.
But well, and my, my thing that was confusing to me too is that the second patient that
she has that she kind of has a moment where it wasn't looking very great in calls into
the office and she immediately asked what happened.
This one she didn't.
She was just like, Hey, here's counsel.
We're going to have a formal meeting.

(35:30):
Yeah.
So like to me, that was kind of all.
The only thing I can think of justification with is that it was her first death.
And so they were just like, Oh, we're just going to do it this way because hopefully
there will be another one.
And then when there was a close call, they were like, Hey, we need to maybe sit down
and talk about this, but I thought maybe it was because she went to her office and so

(35:52):
and she like never goes to her office.
So then M knew like she just needed to have a conversation.
Maybe I don't know.
Yeah.
It was weird though.
Well, and so when she leaves that meeting, she ends up going back to her office where
Paula is waiting for her regarding questioning the death of her patient.
And then she proceeds to tell Paula details after M just told her not to speak to anybody.

(36:18):
I mean, literally walk down the hall and give us this woman details after she was just instructed
not to say anything to anybody.
And even though I think she started off with good intentions, being like, Hey, there's a
formal review like, well, I can't talk to you about it.
She then proceeds to wonder, she asked her questions, respond with answers.
So it just it backfired.
But Anne starts going down this kind of like spiral of reviewing all the paperwork and

(36:42):
videos regarding the procedure.
And so she notes that she did everything by the book until she saw his face.
However, she also then still notes that she did proceed with a couple of their things.
It took us 75% of the book for her to admit that she did two more minutes of massage in
the heart.
And I said that I thought girl case closed.
Yeah.

(37:03):
Ain't nobody catching you doing it.
Nothing.
Like I thought there's no way.
Yeah.
I could get you off easy.
Even if you got convicted, you probably get probation.
Like literally I started running through like girl, stop.
You're worried for nothing.
Geez.
Well, and so Paula goes on her own spiral and she decides that she's going to try to

(37:26):
ruin Annie's career because she went steric to leave her.
So she thinks the best way to get Dary to leave her is by ruining Anne, which makes
no sense to me.
No, personally.
Yeah.
That's his money bag.
Yeah.
Well, I think that's what the purpose was is if she didn't have a career, there wasn't
money coming in, but also it didn't make sense because they said that the money was

(37:48):
coming from the mom.
I think, I think there's an inheritance that she would have gotten at some point, obviously.
Yeah.
She might have got some of it from dad already, but she, I mean, of course, she had her own
income as a doctor.
Yeah.
But I think she had a fat inheritance waiting.
Well, it's a, if her dad's a doctor and then her mom was, I assume a nurse.

(38:12):
They had a good inheritance on their own.
Yeah.
So I'm thinking that alone would keep him hanging around because he's going to want
half of it.
Yeah.
And if she's dumb enough to put it into a joint account, then he's entitled half of
it.
So don't do that.
So Anne ends up again, another plot, looking at an old autopsy report for her sister, Melanie,

(38:37):
and it notes a lot of the previous bruising that she had gotten prior to being adopted
is then trying to get out of a surgery that she was assigned.
And she's warned by one of her trainers, I guess is what you would supervise her mentors,
that the investigation that she's under is not normal and that somebody's kind of out

(39:00):
to get her, which makes her paranoia go up 20 times more if that's even possible.
So Paula asked her investigator to look more into Anne and Paula puts out a news article
regarding the death of Caleb, which I don't understand how her boss did not catch onto
what was going on up to this point.
I don't think he's a really good supervisor in my opinion based on everything I've learned,

(39:26):
but he probably doesn't do much anything anymore.
Well, no, my thing was, is that she was, she talks about how she moves up to the, I think
it was the fifth floor or whatever, and that she's supposed to be on three months of job
training and then a year of probation.
So where was her job trainer?
Where was her probationary check ins?
I mean, it just basically she moved up to the fifth floor was the only thing that was

(39:49):
like, so if that was not going to be mentioned, wouldn't even thought anything about it.
But the fact that those two things were mentioned specifically in her promotion and then none
of that happened.
And it seems like this was ongoing for like at least two months.
Yeah.
No, I agree.
It definitely was again, unnecessary.

(40:09):
It didn't add to the story.
Yeah.
So Derek, who we ended up finding out at some point by this point is Mr. Mayor.
They've had an ongoing affair and he confronts Paula regarding harassing his wife or the
patient's death.
And she says that she did not learn about the death from him.

(40:30):
It was from somebody at the hospital.
So Paula threatens Derek that she could create headlines such as finding cocaine and things
like that on him to ruin his mayor's campaign that he's running for, which in the storyline
basically shuts him up for a little bit.
So he's an idiot.

(40:50):
Yeah.
So in the review, she receives the autopsy report, which shows also, so I thought this,
I thought where the writer was trying to go with that whole entire scene was how to get
away with murder.

(41:10):
The main lady in it and then her investigator guy does similar things where he like hides
drugs and things like that with people she's trying to rat out or whatever.
So I kind of felt like that's where she was trying to go with that writing, but it didn't
give off the same vibes.
So hard to agree because I loved how to go with murder.

(41:32):
And I loved Viola Davis in that.
Yeah.
Also, speaking of her investigator and the vibes, I did not appreciate the part of the
book where it talks about that he uses his knuckles and the old phone book or whatever.
This book came out in 2023.
I don't know if Leslie Wolfe is aware, but there is a heavy history in the Cook County

(41:56):
area documented known for a fact, I actually know men that have experienced it where they
were tortured into testifying and like not testifying into admitting to crimes that
didn't commit and like served years in prison for crimes they did not commit.
I know a man that was branded so that he would falsely confess like it's not a joke.

(42:17):
So I didn't really like that.
I kind of thought like it didn't add to the story anything.
If we were going to do it, I felt like we should have like acknowledged that it was
a bad thing at least.
Yeah.
I mean, because like Cook County literally like hooked men up to a car battery like to
let you do them like like a very heavily tortured people into confessing.
There's multiple documented cases of it.
Like it's not not fictional.

(42:39):
It's not a rumor or whatever.
So that really kind of actually pissed me off and I wish that would have been better
handled.
I'm not opposed to it being included because it you know, educates people about wrong purposes
and you know, wrongful interrogation techniques stuff like that.
The way it was handled in this book was ridiculous and I did not like that.
As soon as I read that, I was mad.
I had to hit the book down for a minute.

(43:00):
I was like, okay, you clearly did not have any actual knowledge about the system and
what's happened with the history and I didn't appreciate that.
Well, again, I think she just tried to throw the book and include everything she possibly
could.
So in the review and receives the autopsy report, which ends up showing her that there
was too much potassium in the heart, which even though she flushed the heart, she feels

(43:22):
like shouldn't have been there.
But as the review is starting, Dr. Bolliger is starting to downgrade and how that she's
a woman and that's why she couldn't perform further life saving measures, which the point
into being made that she has done longer on other patients.
So she can and saying that basically the incident was a long time coming.

(43:44):
I mean, if that's the case, she would have gone for as long without any incidents.
It sounds like.
Again, I don't understand why that was even in there.
Yeah, I will say though, I was very satisfied in the same review meeting.
They then were like also you're suspended.
Yeah, because you're a jackass, but didn't think it added anything.
No.

(44:05):
And Dr. Selden, I think is how it's pronounced is her mentor and he's also in the peer review
and he describes how she's well below the mortality rate of the department because of
her techniques and skills.
And he talks about her creating an environment where everybody can express their concerns
when they have them.
And that is, you know, part of the reason for her success.
And proceeds to talk about how the heart was not the same as others before that it wasn't

(44:28):
giving any kind of hint of restarting and that it and I do believe that she probably
would have responded in the same situation for somebody else the same way, based off
of just kind of getting her personality and kind of getting her readings off of her anxiety
and stuff like that.
I do generally believe that she would have treated it the same, but I do think that she's

(44:52):
fed up the process because she saw the guy's face, which I think she may have admitted
to that at some point as well.
Yeah, she definitely quit attempting quicker than she would have it with somebody else
wholeheartedly.
We find out later that it didn't matter anyways, that his heart was already dead anyways.
But what I didn't understand was the like, I don't know, I didn't understand the way

(45:19):
everybody else kind of acted in that meeting.
Like you couldn't get the vibe that they were going to approve her.
Like even while she said like the dude that was making her mentor was making the speech
or whatever, she said there were some like looks of confusion and like, I don't know
if that was like to add to the thriller aspect or something.
I don't know, but it was weird and it like tried to make it like suspenseful that like

(45:41):
the autopsy report came back that nothing had occurred wrong.
But like that wasn't a twist either because she done that.
She knew that.
Yeah.
She didn't do anything wrong because she didn't know who he was at that point.
She didn't know who he was to the end.
But it didn't make any sense for there to be anything wrong in the autopsy report.
You know, like it just so I was like, obviously, that's not a twist.

(46:04):
Like, you know, I don't see every time I say, obviously, that's what I hear in my head.
I don't know.
So it was just weird.
It was very mediocre.
And I'm not going to say that she writes every book that she writes mediocre.
I'm not going to say that.
I have not read more than one book by her.
So I don't want to bash her like that.
But if she does write like this in her other books, I wouldn't read them.

(46:26):
Does she have a lot of books?
Yeah, she's several other books.
Several and KU, I know.
Yeah, so I don't know, but I'm not a fan.
So the committee ends up finding her not at fault for the death of Caleb.
And so we believe that everything's kind of settled at that point.

(46:51):
But however, of course, there's still Paula.
Well, speaking of, I would have liked to have known like, or I would have liked it to be
explained maybe in the doctor's speech, like an average time of attempting to restart the
heart.
Something to give me context other than what she's done in the past.
You know what I mean?
Well, and I don't think there is a set time to be honest.

(47:13):
I think it's up to the doctor and their situation because I mean, no, for sure.
But I mean, like there is still statistics that there's like, what's like, is there
a specific minimum that you have to do?
Is it 10 minutes?
And after 10 minutes, can you technically call time of death?
There's got to be some standard.
So then like, so then my experience is the great.
Raise anatomy doctor, but you know, some of it could go on for hours and some of it could

(47:37):
go on for a few minutes.
But like statistically, people that do it for an hour or longer, do they 50% are restarted?
10% are restarted.
You know what I mean?
Like I would have liked some more statistics in that meeting to sort of round out why she
was found innocent.
I know this sounds really bad, but grace anatomy is the only thing I have to be.

(48:01):
It sounded so short of time for me.
Yeah.
Well, no, on grace anatomy, like the only time they continue to like try to resuscitate
somebody is whenever they got a hint of like a heartbeat while after the resuscitation
and then they flat lined again.
So then they'd start the, you know, my same measures again, but I don't know if that happens
like in a real life situation.

(48:22):
Trust grace anatomy.
They'd be doing it in the supply closet and then go to surgery.
And then go to surgery with some dirty hands.
I don't trust him.
They have to like scrub.
They have the scrub room.
I don't trust him.
Now, I just would have liked to have known that if that doesn't exist, which I'm almost

(48:47):
positive it does because statistics or statistics, whether they're reliable or not is a different
conversation, but I would have liked that to at least be explained then.
Yeah.
You know, like there is a minimum.
You have to do at least five minutes.
Then you can call time of death, maybe, but it's crazy.
I kept thinking like, man, if I was on that table and they only did like 20 minutes, I'd
be offended.
I'd be offended.

(49:08):
I'd be like, dang, I'm only worth 20 minutes of effort.
Dang.
You know what I'm saying?
And he didn't have a next of kin.
So like, do you try harder if they have an X of kin?
Cause for liability purposes, I bet you do.
Well, I'm sure I would say that, especially if the doctor talks.
So the family or something and you like feel for them, you probably would try harder for

(49:30):
the ones that like you feel, you know, sorry for it.
It's like a legal case would be the same way.
If you relate more to the person or if they're rude, you're more probably going to work harder
for somebody that's not.
You'd be surprised that people think they can say and still get away with it.
Well, I mean, I have people in the car business that want to call and have us waive their payments

(49:52):
and then they want to sit there and cuss you out.
Yeah.
And then you're like, okay, well, I'm not going to help you then.
Yeah.
Who's waiving your payment?
Not me.
I mean, you get more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.
You sure do.
Every day of the week.
So in the third part, Paula spirals as her plan to get Annie and Annie for murder and

(50:17):
Annie, I don't know.
It's Anne.
It doesn't matter.
I hate to look at it.
Anne, Annie, Anne, I'm trying to act.
Annie for murder is coming apart and Derek is threatening to expose her and now so is
her investigator.
Anne ends up uncovering the truth about the heart and who tampered with it, but she also
uncovers by Paula is so hell bent on coming after her.

(50:38):
I gotta say, when I found out it was her mom, I was like, you go mom.
I literally said out loud when she got home, we realized that's who it was because you
said she recognized the silhouette of the nurse first.
So I was thinking it was like Madison or something and like maybe Madison ended up.
No, I thought it was Daga Melody.
Oh, I did for a split second.

(51:00):
But it talks about she'd held her lifeless body and so I was like, no, she's dead.
But I thought maybe it was Madison and maybe like Madison grew up in that, that home too
and we just didn't know about it.
That's how I thought it was going.
Then it wasn't Madison because she didn't confront her.
Then she goes home and it's mom.
And I out loud said, okay, that is probably the one person that I would have cleared a

(51:20):
security video for.
Yeah.
It's my mom.
Like 1000%.
Because at first I was like, are you stupid?
The video is the only thing that would exonerate you and you just deleted it.
So I was panicking at first, but then time to be mom and I was like, okay, that makes
sense.
Yeah, that's fair.
So after her committee meeting, she is cornered in him's office with Adam, the investigator

(51:41):
who they end up learning that he has no open case against her, but he's been going around
the hospital basically asking questions.
Called him out.
Oh yeah.
That was the only point that she seemed like a strong woman with this big man that she's
describing.
I think it was, it didn't meet her character.
It was a whole different character.

(52:02):
Like Madison, I would feel like Madison would have done that.
Yeah.
Not, not.
I agree.
Which I have a hard time believing that cardiovascular surgeon is a soft, scared to speak up individual.
I have a hard time putting that character with that job title.
Agreed.

(52:22):
Well, and then the in the lawyer basically say until paperwork shown, she's not allowed
to be questioned.
And which of course they can't produce paperwork because there's not an official vestigation.
And then there's a random side plot that happens with Paula's child witness who she's
forcing to testify and he's murdered.
And she then invited Derek to the arrest of the murderer and he uses an opportunity to

(52:47):
again tell her to leave him and Anna alone and Paula ends up threatening him again.
Let me ask you this.
Why did we even have the child in there?
Because I thought dad said if the kid dies, I'm coming after you.
So then kid dies.
So I thought dad would get Paula before Paula could get Ann.
We don't hear anything else about dad.

(53:08):
Nothing.
Well, and then my thought was, okay, so the only reason why I feel like this was in here
was so that way they're into being the video about Paula and Derek.
But then when it sent to Ann, she doesn't even believe that that's true.
So then it was kind of a pointless video because if she would have solved Derek and Paula kissing

(53:31):
in her office, it still would have led to the same conclusion in the long run.
Correct.
So correct.
Other than maybe putting a point out there that she's still a working attorney in some
case, that's the only thing that I gathered.
And honestly, she wasn't because her investigator was doing all of the work, which he does.

(53:57):
She doesn't, she doesn't do that.
Yeah.
Also, if he's not a police officer and he's just an investigator, he's not making the
arrest.
Yeah.
And also, I'd like to know more about their search warrant, because I believe they called
it an arrest warrant, which is different than a search warrant.
And yet they went into his house and searched the apartment and all kinds of stuff.

(54:20):
So like, I think we're also got off a little bit there too.
Yeah.
So I just couldn't enjoy this.
I mean, everything, no offense to her, but everything just was wrong.
I agree.
So Ann is distracted and she ends up making another critical error in a surgery.
However, the patient ends up surviving.

(54:41):
And then she basically admits to him sort of kind of that she's still not sure who in
the world reported her to the attorney.
So M says that she'll look into it.
What was the point of any of that?
No idea.
What was the point of her almost losing another patient?
What was the point of Ann looking into the phone call?
Other than the fact that it's her anxiety and paranoia is spreading into her job.

(55:05):
I mean, that's about it.
So then Paula is called into her boss's office because he found out that she was using her
status to go after Ann because she's being a jealous mistress as he calls her.
And Mitch, her boss tells her that she has 24 hours to basically prove she's not acting
out of jealousy and or he will have her disbarred.

(55:27):
There's no way she'd get 24 hours either.
I can tell you that.
Yeah.
No.
No.
That sleeping with somebody on the clock and abusing your power.
No, not as a ASA.
He can't risk that underneath him as a state's attorney.
There's no way that get 24 hours.
Her ex would have been cut off.
Yeah.
Well, and she doesn't really do anything with that time either.

(55:49):
So I don't even know why she asked for it.
He got on her though.
He was on his own.
He's on her ass.
So Anna's going to the security office to watch the tapes of the whole interaction from
when Caleb checked into whenever he went under.
She ends up seeing a suspicious person on the tapes that she recognizes and she risk
deleting the scenes that she watched as many as she could.

(56:13):
At the same time, she ends up finding out that Lee Chin is who the tip came from to
the attorney's office.
But apparently Paula had been threatening to deport his mother since October, which was
I guess months prior.
And so they have all this and then pretty much and brushes it to the side to go home
to confront her mom about her injecting Caleb's heart with something.

(56:37):
And so they go back and forth about memories and Melanie and how she apparently ended up
committing suicide over a boyfriend trying to get frisky with her.
Yeah.
So then as all this is going on, someone anonymously sends Ann the photo of Paula and Derek at
the crime scene.
She brushes it off and doesn't think of anything really of importance.

(57:01):
And so moral of this story, don't trust me.
And yeah, they're the ones messing this whole thing up.
Anybody notice that a man hurt Paula?
That's why Paula is acting out now.
Man hurt Melanie.
That's why Ann and her mother thought he'd be better off not being resurrected.
I guess not resurrected, but you know what I mean?
We're sus.

(57:22):
Take it.
Whatever.
His husband was telling the state's attorney information about to get her to go to prison
and his husband was cheating.
But then now is going to threaten her and make her say in the relationship so he can
run for mayor.
What else?
I mean, what the heck?
The man shot his pregnant wife or something at the very beginning, then put a hit out

(57:43):
on a kid.
Well, the story, many shit.
So Paula's out of options.
So she ends up holding Derek and Ann hostage and Ann's office.
And after she gets Derek in front of Ann, Ann realizes that that's why Paula was hell

(58:07):
bent on going after her.
But she also ends up revealing that she was Melanie's sister and Paula ended up blaming
Ann for stealing her and her death, which why blame her blame mom and dad.
That's what my thought was, is why none of this was going after mom and dad.

(58:28):
Making a mom and dad.
Which I mean, that could have been a twist of why the dad was dead because we never
figured out why the dad was dead.
So that would have made more of like a intense story of like, oh, I'm just picking you off
one by one.
I haven't had access to your mom, but your next kind of thing.
That's a good point.
Or like dad's already dead, mom does some point in the book and then at the end we realize
that's what's happening or something like that.
Yeah.

(58:49):
Good point.
Another mess up in this book is saying that nobody investigated this alleged sexual abuse
of these children in a foster home.
Now, did you see not one time that the Department of Family and Children Services, the Department
of Children and Family Services was not mentioned?
Yeah, no.
Not one time.
I can tell you, there you go right to that door.

(59:12):
And if that little girl had bruises like that where you can tell just from the bruises,
then probably so did Paula and probably so did every other little girl in that house.
And they would have took those kids out from those bruises alone.
Whether they can prove sexual abuse or not is not the purpose.
That's not the story.
Yeah.
That's not the point.
Well, I think there is a mention of like the mom saying how they would hurt her.

(59:33):
It's it took them four years of calling is what she claims lies.
No.
No.
I'm not saying he would have been criminally charged because that's a whole different conversation.
But DCFS would have pulled them kids out of that house.
Yeah.
A thousand percent.
So in some point, the file that Anne had been keeping on her desk of Caleb falls off and

(59:54):
Paula ends up seeing the face of the guy without his hair.
And so she ends up recognizing him and saying that that was who abused her as well.
And Derek ends up going for the gun.
They end up having like a tussle and Derek and Paula both end up shot.
Both are fine.
They both live.
But when Derek gets home and gets out of the hospital, she said she wants to divorce.

(01:00:16):
And Derek pretty much says, you know, no, you're not getting a divorce because I know
what you did.
And and pretty much is OK with that because she says that she knows how to stop a heart.
And that's the end of the book.
I would have rather.
Here's what I would have liked.
I could have dealt with all this nonsense if the book was like and writing like a confession

(01:00:39):
letter.
This is going to sound crazy because I don't encourage anybody to kill themselves.
But let me let me tell you what would have been a really good plot twist.
Anne was writing a letter, her confession letter, like you're telling all of these details
of the story that we just read.
And it was like she was going to kill herself to be to be with Melanie now because she had
killed her husband also after she killed Caleb.

(01:01:01):
And then like maybe Paula died too.
Let's say Paula died.
This long line of people and she just couldn't live with it anymore.
Just see my thought was is it would be really cool if like Madison or Paula or somebody
that's working around her every day was actually Melanie.

(01:01:21):
And like she just didn't recognize her because she hasn't seen her, you know, since she was
like 11 or 12 and 14.
She's just 14.
I think it's significant.
So I think it is.
I mean, just like altogether, like something like that happened and then like she's going
around murdering the people that like wronged her.
Or again, like I said, where the dad was being killed by Paula and then the mom killed by

(01:01:45):
Paula and then now Anne's being killed by Paula.
Like something like there was like 20 different ways.
And even if she chose like one to maybe three plots that she had going on in there and she
just stuck with those.
I think she thought like she could convince us all that the whole reason.

(01:02:10):
That Paula wanted to kill and was because of the mistress angle.
I think she thought like we were all distracted by that.
And then boom, no, actually she wanted to kill her since she was nine years old because
she took her sister from the fall.
I think she thought that was going to be like some big reveal.
Yeah, but it wasn't.
It wasn't done well.
Honestly, by the end of it, I'm not so sure it was about Melanie anymore.

(01:02:32):
Yeah.
So I think if she had taken out those like, I don't know, I don't know.
It's a double edged sword, I guess, but it felt like we were supposed to hate Paula because
she was the mistress and then like, but then we were supposed to sympathize with her because
it turns out like she's Melanie's sister and she also experienced the abuse and like that

(01:02:57):
was the big plot twist, but it wasn't a big plot twist.
We already have one of those justification kind of situations.
Yeah.
Like, I think, you know what I think would have made more sense if we didn't actually
know she was sleeping with a husband.
We just were like, we were so focused on like she has to be sleeping with her husband.
It has to be her husband.

(01:03:17):
Like at the very beginning, there's a couple of chapters when you're first year and you
don't know it's the same guy.
Yeah.
I think if that had been the thing the whole time and like we never knew that it was the
same guy and it appeared to be two different guys, then at the end it's like, boom, it's
the same guy.
I've been using him really, I'm not that I'm in love with him, but I've been using him
to find out about you and now I'm going to kill you and him because because of Melanie

(01:03:40):
or whatever.
And you would have kind of take out still like six or seven other plots.
Yeah.
For that storyline to actually make sense.
I mean, there was it's not a big look, but there was so much in it.
I agree.
I don't know.

(01:04:03):
So what's your final thoughts on ratings?
Okay, so I'm going to preface this with I pretty much pick my ratings sitting right
here right now.
That's the number I give it.
I hate to do this.
I really do.
But my rating is probably a 2.5.
I didn't like it.
I thought it was very mediocre.
I didn't think it was well written.

(01:04:26):
I did.
I didn't even like like a character.
That's how frustrated I was by the entire book.
Like I couldn't even tell you one of the characters that I actually enjoyed the most.
And that's because I didn't get to hear her point of view probably.
Yeah.
Like because she was barely there.
She'd cook dinner and clean the house.
Lovely.
But like, and she killed and she helped kill him that I gave her a point for that.

(01:04:46):
But like I there was no character that I could relate to and that's crazy for me to
be able to say that because one's an ASA, the guy's an attorney.
Like the fact that I can't relate to anybody in the book is crazy.
So just not a fan.
So but that's definitely yeah.
2.5 is probably the number I would give it.
Again, it's just mediocre.

(01:05:08):
I wouldn't waste your time reading it.
There are other better thrillers.
If you want to start with this one and build up maybe so you can see like how much better
it can be.
I guess you could do that.
Honestly, I wouldn't waste your time and I don't mean to be that offensive to Miss Leslie
Wolfe.
Maybe it's just this book that I don't like because there's so many legal errors in it
for me.

(01:05:28):
Maybe that ruins it.
I don't know.
But this one is not for me.
What about you?
So I actually gave it a 2.3.
We're like in sync lately.
Have you noticed that?
Yeah.
A little concerning.
And it was just, it was so much.
I really think she needed to sit down and think about all the tropes, plots, everything

(01:05:54):
that she was putting into it and be like, hey, let me cross out a bunch of these.
It's just now down to 3.
And let me build a story off of those 3.
I still think 3 is a little maybe too much for her in this small amount of book, but
3 would have been better than probably 22.
So it was just, it was a lot.
It was a mess.
It was, it was just so all over the place.

(01:06:16):
I mean, first of all, I didn't know whether or not, I didn't like that we didn't know
who we were really reading.
I didn't like that the fact that we get like almost in one chapter, we get six different
plots and different tropes and different feelings and emotions and things like that.
It just literally, to be honest, the best way I can say this, and I don't mean anything

(01:06:42):
by this.
So this is again, my opinion.
What I'm saying that basically you make a bowl of the SpaghettiOs with the letters in
it and you just basically throw it at the wall and she just like made some words out
of it is kind of how it felt.
Like it just, it was so messy.
It was just, I mean, there wasn't, there wasn't a rhyme or reason to most of it.
And even at the end, I didn't feel like there was a rhyme and reason to 90% of the book

(01:07:06):
of why it was even there.
I mean, none of it made sense.
You had two different emotions of why this woman was going after this chick.
You had two different emotions of whether or not this guy is cheating on her.
I mean, it was just, there was no solid path, I feel like, in this book whatsoever.
It didn't become about, I mean, trusted surgeon.

(01:07:27):
We hit on one portion that's that, loving wife.
I mean, there was maybe one portion of that, then murderer.
Okay.
There was literally the first chapter we get where she thinks that and then the rest of
the time she's paranoid about being arrested.
So like I just, it was just so all over the place.

(01:07:49):
It's just, she needed to pick one thing and stick with it.
Agreed.
Hardly agree.
2.3.
Okay.
Hang on.
I'm sorry.
I usually don't like to go below.
But no, I know.
I try really hard not to go below a three.

(01:08:10):
So for me to go below, for us to go below a three, it's just not worth your time.
And again, honestly, I know that's, I read it really fast because I was trying to just
get through it.
To be honest, like I was just like, if I stopped my momentum, I'm going to not want to pick
it back up, which I did at about 75%.
I was like, I put it down because I, you know, I got back from vacation.

(01:08:32):
I was like, I'm going to unpack.
I'm going to do all that.
It was like six days later.
And I was like, I really don't want to pick up this book again.
But I did because I needed to read the last 25%.
If it had been a 600 page book, I would have DNFed it.
I wanted to DNF it anyways, but I was like, it's like 300 pages.
You can get through it.
Maybe it'll get better.
Maybe there's a plot twist.

(01:08:53):
It'll make everything make sense.
And you'll actually like it.
Who knows?
Cause that's kind of how silent patient was reading.
It was very chaotic for me.
And I sort of was like, what is happening?
Like I almost couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to because it was so chaotic.
This one, it was chaotic, but like every other chapter like solved some of that chaos and

(01:09:13):
wasn't like, oh my gosh, I didn't see that coming.
It wasn't like full of plot twists.
I don't know that there was a single plot twist to be quite frank.
I wouldn't even call finding out that Melanie was her sister plot twist.
It was like a, oh, okay.
That kind of makes a little bit more sense why she's so hell bent on killing this woman,
but it still doesn't really make sense.
So yeah, I wouldn't waste your time.

(01:09:35):
I'm sorry, Leslie, but I was super excited because I had seen some people talk about
this book and talk about that it was good or whatever.
But my thing is, is they obviously, yeah, I don't trust their opinions any longer.
And then not like that, but for the fact that, I mean, silent patient and never lie were
both much better.
Perfect marriage was so much better.

(01:09:56):
Like the twists and turns that those books had, even though some of them were kind of
more obvious.
This one, I mean, there was not a corner.
I was turning around and being like, Oh my gosh, it was just like, Oh, okay, well, let's
go on.
Yeah, I agree.
I think if it had been advertised as something, maybe other than a thriller, maybe that would
have helped.
I don't know because it's really not a thriller.

(01:10:17):
It has some themes of being a thriller, but it's not really a thriller.
It's more of a cheating.
It's more of a love triangle.
That's like the whole plot of the book.
Yeah.
And I don't like that.
So, but okay.
So we've been really hateful this episode.
So if you liked this episode, or if you liked any other episodes, please subscribe to get

(01:10:38):
access to bloopers, extra content and more on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Patreon and YouTube.
You can also find our free episodes on those podcast platforms, but you can also find bonus
episodes you have to subscribe to and a couple of those podcast platforms as well.
We actually today recorded two bonus episodes.
So they'll be coming out soon.

(01:10:58):
Yeah.
So you can also send us book suggestions, comments or general inquiries to our email.
I like, we read them at CarlWithTheKMPodcast.com.
We again release our episodes on the first, third and fifth.
If there is one Fridays of each month at five AM central time.
We'll also, like she said, include random bonus episodes that were released at five

(01:11:18):
AM on specific days as well.
These bonus episodes will be subscription.
So you would do have to purchase them to have access to them.
And we are revealing future episode books and things like that in some of these episodes.
So if you do want a heads up, we also are more casual laid back in some of these episodes.

(01:11:41):
We are going to do things like arcs, games, theories, additional books, Marvel, movie
reviews, different things.
I mean, we recorded today our top five podcast episodes where we liked them, some future
episodes we're excited about, and also some book boyfriends that we really enjoy.
So just things like that.
We also hope to bring you some more content on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

(01:12:02):
So you will also get early access to our books at the end of each of our episodes.
But you also just in general find them out on Sundays if you don't tune in to our prior
episode.
Yep.
So on November one, we will be reviewing Archer's Voice by Mia Sheridan.
I'm very, very excited to finally get to read this book.

(01:12:25):
I've seen it everywhere and I've had it for like over a year and I'm very excited to get
it off on TBR and actually read it.
Fun fact, it's also 1KU if you want to read it on Kendo Unlimited.
But the blurb says this, I wanted to lose myself in the small town of Pelion, Pelion,
Maine to forget everything I had left behind, the sound of rain, the blood, the coldness

(01:12:47):
of a gun against my skin.
For six months, each breath has been a reminder that I survived and my dad didn't.
I'm almost safe again.
But the moment I meet Archer Hale, my entire world tilts on its axis and never writes itself
again.
Until I trespass into his strange, silent and isolated world, Archer communicates with
no one.

(01:13:08):
Yet, in his whiskey colored eyes, something intangible happens between us.
There's so much more to him than just his beauty, his presence, or the ways his hands
communicate with me.
On me.
This town is mired in secrets and betrayals and Archer is the explosive center of it all.
So much passion and so much hurt, but it's in Archer's silence that we might just find
what we need to heal and to live.

(01:13:30):
A gorgeous tale of survival and the healing power of love is what one of the reviews are
on the book.
So, super excited.
And my version has an exclusive extended epilogue.
I don't know if that's on KU or not.
I know I got the special edition that has the iridescent cover just man that has it
right now.

(01:13:50):
How pretty.
Yeah.
Okay, well, we appreciate you tuning into this episode.
We hope you'll tune into our bonus episodes as well.
We can't wait to hear your thoughts on any of our episodes.
As always, we promise to Carl and Lock, we read them.