Without Consent
WITHOUT CONSENT is an edgy medical mystery set in southwestern Ontario where a killer is at work.
He is crafty and vicious, revealing medical techniques as he excises the kidneys of women he abducts.
Doctor Claire Valincourt, recently jilted, finds his first victim and assists with the autopsy.
Relationship-jaded Detective Rosko desperately searches for a killer who is on his own search.
The hunt for a perfect kidney for the terminally ill mother he tends.
Winner Chanticleer Clue Award for Medical Suspense
REVIEWS
Chapter One
The scalpel gripped securely between his fingers sent a delicious thrill up his arm. He laid the blade against her abdomen. The ease with which the razor-sharp edge sliced through the creamy white flesh triggered a response that was nearly orgasmic.
The woman’s inert body jerked violently with the first slice, her face twisting into a grotesque mask of pain. He pressed on the stainless steel instrument and slid it across the taunt skin. She twitched several times, settled, then became still.
Bev Irwin’s Without Consent is a Page-Turner. Richard Young Editor of The Beat Magazine.
Perhaps you have heard the “urban legend” about Kidney Thieves, the one in which unsuspecting tourists have one of their kidneys surgically removed by strangers in unfamiliar hotel rooms in major North American and European cities. The harvested kidneys are then sold on the black market to the highest bidder.
London author Bev Irwin borrows from the Kidney Thieves story, turning it on its head in her impressive medical crime novel, Without Consent, in which a serial killer methodically abducts women, surgically removes one of their kidneys while they are alive and then dumps their dead bodies in city parks.
Irwin wastes no time getting her story started, introducing her nameless killer in the book’s opening chapter and describing his criminal MO in stark, bloody language.
After the first victim’s naked body is discovered by ER Doctor Claire Valincourt during her morning jog the following day, the book’s main characters are introduced and their paths gradually interject as the hunt for the killer unfolds in the fictional town of Strathburn.
Irwin has created very believable complex characters. As the dedicated ER Doctor, Valincourt exhibits the resourcefulness, sensitivity and toughness required by the job. The book’s criminal investigator, Detective Gerry Rosko, displays the necessary street smarts, tenacity and wherewithal one would expect. Yet, despite his best efforts, Rosko finds himself one step behind the novel’s serial killer for much of the story.
Complicating matters, and acting as a convenient plot device, is the romantic and professional relationship that develops between Rosko and Dr. Valincourt as they join forces to stop the killer.
Minor characters like the wisecracking medical examiner Dr. “Mac” MacFarlane, pushy TV news reporter Sherry Simmons, CIS technician Chao Sugimoto, and other police and medical personnel and suspects come in and out the narrative as necessary.
The author takes the reader further and further into the troubled mind of her serial killer with each kidney harvesting episode, gradually revealing his identity and the motive behind his grisly actions.
After Dr. Valincourt is abducted and finds herself strapped to the Kidney Slasher’s killing table, the novel races towards its logical conclusion.
Bev Irwin draws upon her years of experience as a registered nurse in various medical settings and capacities to give the novel its medical authenticity. One can almost “smell” and hear the sounds of the hospital wards in which a good deal of the action takes place.
With a number of Adult, Young Adult and Children’s published titles to her credit, Irwin knows how to tell a good story. She also writes romance novels under the pen name of Kendra James.
Irwin has another novel featuring Claire Valincourt and Gerry Rosko in the works. “It will delve into medical research and the lengths that someone would go to in their quest to save a loved one,” she says.
Without Consent is definitely a suspenseful page-turner and comes highly recommended.
Without Consent begins at a fast pace and keeps up the thrilling action throughout the book. Dr. Claire Valincourt finds the first victim of a ruthless and insane serial murderer who is trying to develop his surgical aptitude on helpless victims. Detective Gerry Rosko is a man with rough edges but a good heart who meets Dr. Valincourt when he questions her about the first victim. The two quench passionate desires as they uncover clues that may lead Rosko to the killer. Although initially engaged by the brutal murders of women in his jurisdiction, the case takes an ominous turn for Rosko when the victims are women he personally knows. He’s all the more determined to find the killer when Valincourt becomes a target. Irwin creates the right amount of entertaining suspense as the victim tally mounts and keeps the reader turning the pages until the last chapter’s brilliant finish. Carole Avila, Author Eve’s Amulet, Book 1.