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One interesting modern example of the nurse detective genre is Mary Kittredge's series featuring R.N.-turned-investigator Edwina Crusoe.
In her mid-thirties when the series begins, Edwina, though she comes from a rich high-society background, has been a nurse for fifteen years. Now her business cards read: "Edwina Crusoe, R.N., Confidential Consulting. Medical/Health Matters Only" (Cadaver), but some folks aren't terribly impressed: "You mean to tell me you're just some nurse, snooping around here on your own?" (Cadaver).
Though she claims to specialize in medical fraud and quackery, she's generally up to her ears in murder.
- Fatal Diagnosis, 1990
When two people are shot in the tissue-typing laboratory at Chelsea Memorial Hospital, Edwina investigates the connection with a baby-switching case that has two couples waging a bitter battle for custody of a little girl. [Available at Amazon.com]
- Rigor Mortis, 1991
A nurse is accused of fatally tampering with patients' IVs, but Edwina thinks the scenario is just a little too pat, and the nurse might be the victim of a frame-up. [Available at Amazon.com]
- Cadaver, 1992
Edwina investigates a doctor's apparent suicide and his secretary's murder--a case that also has attracted the intense interest of the psychotic who has kidnapped Edwina's husband. [Available at Amazon.com]
- Walking Dead Man, 1992
A woman tells Edwina that she killed a man who is now sending messages threatening to kill her--a story that seems rather implausible, until the frightened woman is promptly murdered on her way out of Edwina's office. [Available at Amazon.com]
- Desperate Remedy, 1993
A doctor is wounded and his wife is murdered in two separate shooting incidents on the same night--and someone is still trying to kill the doctor in his hospital room. [Available at Amazon.com]
- Kill or Cure, 1995
A shooting spree in the hospital's emergency room leaves two dead, a young boy wounded, and the gun-happy surgeon in the psychiatric ward, all set to enter an insanity defense. [Available at Amazon.com]
Cover illustration by John Nickle, from Desperate Remedy, copyright © 1993, St. Martin's Press.
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