Emergency Murder

In her debut novel, McGiffin turns a pair of appealing sleuths loose on the medical profession. By portraying medicine as a small, secretive community that closes its ranks against outsiders (like the police), the book cleverly manages to cast suspicion on several characters and keep readers guessing. Dr. Maxene St. Clair, who left a university research job to work in the emergency room of a Milwaukee hospital, gets all the excitement she could want when a prostitute walks in, asks for her by name, then collapses and dies. It turns out she wasn't a prostitute but Nanette Myer, a surgeon's wife. Pathologist Aaron Simonson says she died of heart failure; Maxene doesn't buy it. Hank Myer dismisses Maxene's qualms, but results of a tissue analysis prove Nanette was killed by a nerve poison whose only known local source is Maxene's former lab. She'd be police detective Joseph Grabowski's prime suspect if they didn't have a very friendly relationship simmering. He accepts her insider's belief that, despite supposed safeguards, anyone in the department, from brilliant researcher Dr. Virginia Gaust to scruffy assistant Nathan Schalz, could obtain and use the poison or pass it on to one of the Myers' doctor-friends, who would know precisely what to do with it. ( Feb. )