‘A Fatal Cut’ by Priscilla Masters

Published by Macmillan,
19 May 2000.
ISBN: 978-0-33378294-1 (HB)

When pathologist Dr Karys Harper performs an autopsy on a body found in the grounds of the Queens Hospital, Birmingham, she makes the bizarre discovery that the body has been operated on Postmortem.

The Investigation headed by Detective David Forrest is soon investigating another death, also operated on postmortem. These will not be the only deaths. As DI Forrest investigates, Dr Karys Harper finds herself haunted by past memories that she has spent years trying to forget. Painfully Karys realises that she must face her own past demons to resolve her peace of mind, and maybe capture a serial killer.

I was fascinated by the chain of almost innocuous events that can lead up to a bizarre occurrence. Masters gives us a brief insight into her talent in portraying a set of circumstances that can happen within the day-to-day occurrences in the life of a GP in her book Night Visit, when a seemingly ordinary Doctor patient exchange was suffused with malice, but which would not have stood up to a police investigation. Once again, she produces a set of circumstances in the opening chapters of A Fatal Cut which had me on the edge of my chair thinking, what would I do? Read it for yourself, it’s mind boggling. Can this happen? Does this happen?

This is a compelling read, and is highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Sirett.

Priscilla Masters was born in Halifax, and brought up in South Wales, one of seven multi-racial children adopted by an orthopaedic surgeon and his Classics graduate wife. Priscilla trained as a registered nurse in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham. She moved to Staffordshire in the 1970s, had an antiques business for a while and two sons. She started writing in the 1980s in response to an aunt asking her what she was going to do with her life! Winding up the Serpent was her first Joanna Piercy story, published in 1995.  Although that series is still continuing the latest Crooked Street published 2016, she has also written several medical standalones and a new series featuring coroner Martha Gunn, set in Shrewsbury. Her latest book is Deceiver a psychological thriller featuring Dr Claire Roget who is a forensic psychiatrist who has some very unpredictable patients. It is set in Stoke on Trent.

http://www.priscillamasters.co.uk/