CrossWords

About the Book

CrossWords is a medical drama. It is the story of a patient caught in a vicious struggle between two doctors. Eddie Bonner has a severe form of epilepsy that appears to be the result of an injury he suffered during World War II. Dr. Larry Casper.his neurologist struggles with Eddie through a series of treatments all of which end in Eddie being worse off than before.

Finally, in the late 1970s with the help of the new CAT scan technology, Larry is able to identify a small defect in Eddie’s brain. He recommends to Eddie and his wife  that the defect and surrounding brain tissue be removed surgically.

Larry’s mentor, thirty years earlier, was Dr. Charles Green. Their relationship ended in seething conflict when Larry lured Charlie’s fiancee, Maxine Sherman, away and married her. Charlie has never forgiven Larry for this betrayal. Over these thirty years, Charlie had endured an unhappy marriage which he entered on the rebound. Then his wife died of  breast cancer at age forty four. This was followed by an affair with his research assistant, Angie McMenamin whom he eventually rejects. Angie wreaks her own revenge by destroying most of Charlie’s research data from a project funded heavily by the federal government. Charlie faces charges of fraud and scientific misconduct because, without the raw data, he cannot substantiate his very controversial findings.

Eddie Bonner and his wife decide to proceed with the brain surgery which Larry has recommended. Unexpected complications result in Eddie suffering a paralyzing stroke. The Bonners sue Larry, the hospital and the neurosurgeon for negligence.

The Bonner’s lawyer Jeb Beck, unaware of the bad blood between Charlie and Larry hires Charlie as an expert witness to testify against his old protege. Neither doctor tells his lawyer of the ugly history they share.

As the trial approaches all of the old rivalrous feelings and sense of betrayal take possession of Charlie whose sole motivation now becomes revenge. Trial preparation on both sides assumes an aura of “take no prisoners” as each tries to uncover past indiscretions by the opposing doctors.

Charlie’s flagrant conflict of interest is exposed during a startling deposition as he is hung out to dry by Larry’s lawyer.

Eddie becomes lost in the shuffle as another medical catastrophe befalls him aborting the trial. In a matter of weeks, Eddie dies and without him as their battlefield, Larry and Charlie are forced to look at their own relationship and their respective futures.

With no awareness or planning on his part, Eddie has played a major role in altering the lives of both doctors forever.

Crosswords not only tells the unique stories of Eddie, Larry and Charlie as they struggle through life, but the novel is also laced throughout with subplots provided by a cast of supporting characters including, among others, a judge obsessed with scatological jokes, a bounty hunting lawyer who used to be a medical student, a soon to be married garage attendant terrified about his venereal disease and a tough neurosurgeon who was once a wrestler.

Mostly, CrossWords is about the best and worst in all of us ...the resilience, tenderness, creativity, wisdom, stoicism...and the vanity, lust, treachery and arrogance that are theingredients of human existance.

About the Author

Richard Cohen is a physician/writer with many years of experience in teaching hospitals like those in which CrossWords takes place. He has written extensively about the world of young physicians. His most recent work is HOUSE OFFICER which describes the daily lives and stresses of interns and residents in many different specialties. CrossWords is his first novel. He lives with his wife in Pittsburgh.