Dr. Knox

Dr. Knox

A gripping thriller about a medical doctor with a powerful humanitarian impulse, an unhealthy appetite for risk, and a knack for finding himself between a rock and a hard place.

Adam Knox comes from a long line of patrician Connecticut doctors—a line he broke to serve with an NGO in the war-torn Central African Republic. His attempt to protect his patients there from a brutal militia ended in disaster and disgrace, and now he runs a clinic near Los Angeles’s Skid Row, making ends meet by making house calls—cash only, no questions asked—on those too famous or too criminal to seek other medical care.

When a young boy is abandoned at his clinic, Knox is determined to find the boy’s family and save him from the not-so-tender mercies of the child welfare bureaucracy. But Knox’s search for the volatile woman who may or may not be the boy’s mother leads him and his friend, a former Special Forces operator, into a labyrinth of human traffickers, Russian mobsters, and corporate security thugs; and squarely into the sights of a powerful, secretive, and utterly ruthless family that threatens to destroy Dr. Knox and everything—and everyone—he holds dear.

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Mr. Spiegelman has created a unique Southern California narrator-protagonist whose emergency-room crises are as exciting as car chases.
– The Wall Street Journal
Spiegelman doesn’t publish nearly as much as most crime-fiction authors, but when he does, it’s usually a jewel. And that’s especially true of his latest, which, by all indications, is the first in a series (Hallelujah for that!). . . . Spiegelman twists his way through the plot like a punt returner weaving through traffic, but, beyond that, his ability to burst his characters into throbbing life in a few short paragraphs—combined with a prose style capable of snapping our heads with a staccato succession of perfectly landed prose jabs—will leave readers rubbing their jaws in wonderment. Please, Dr. Knox, make more house calls soon.
– Bill Ott, Booklist (starred review)
[A] propulsive, intrigue-filled thriller . . . Spiegelman expertly doles out the suspense, while leaving his protagonist with some difficult moral choices.
– Publishers Weekly
Dr. Knox is a good one. . . . You have to read [this] book. . . . The Dr. Knox of the title is one of the most interesting characters you are likely to meet all year. . . . A kind of a Ray Donovan of the ghetto. . . . Dr. Knox is almost perfect.
– Joe Hartlaub
Dr. Knox portrays an all-new Los Angeles, rendered in a wild, all-new style. It’s a crackerjack crime novel; everything pop-pop-pops and lures you deeper and deeper into Peter Spiegelman’s luminous vision. It’s a thrilling book.
– James Ellroy
Dr. Knox is a stark, beautifully written revelation. As Ellroy did before him, Spiegelman turns a new page on LA neo-noir, and on the contradictions of that city: its glamour and gore, its wealthy and weak, its merciful and mercenary. Part Robin Hood, part Batman, Knox and Sutter are edgy urban knights for a dark, new age.
– Reed Farrel Coleman
Peter Spiegelman’s Dr. Knox is a bruised wonder of a crime novel. Filled with page-turning intrigue and an L.A. atmosphere so richly rendered you can practically smell the ‘eucalyptus and dust,’ it is both thrilling and rueful, harrowing and moving. Don’t miss it.
– Megan Abbott
A dark urban atmosphere . . . gritty."
– Kirkus Reviews
The prose in Dr. Knox is very vivid and powerful.… Dr. Knox [is] a high-octane, beautifully-written novel exploring the dichotomies of wealth and poverty, hope and despair, and exposing both the beauty and ugly underbelly of Los Angeles.
– Mark Rubinstein
The characterisation is delicious, confrontations continuous, thrills on every page. The villains are horrid, the goodies ambivalent, and the abused come up fighting. A simple but glorious roller-coaster read.
– Shots eZine
Preview
Details
Publisher: Knopf
Publication Year: 2016
ASIN: B016TG1DFO
ISBN: 9780307961273