num_pages: 272
description: In the old days, there were emergency rooms. In contemporary metropolises, there are trauma centers, where highly trained medical staffs use the latest in technology to treat the devastating wounds of inner-city gunfire and highway disaster. Cat takes the reader behind the scenes, into one of Chicago's most impressive trauma centers, to see from the inside how one really works. She expects to experience joy and sadness; she expects both to admire and question. She doesn't expect murder her first day on the job. Dr. Hannah Grant, director of the trauma center, had graciously welcomed Cat, so it's a particular shock when Dr. Grant is found murdered in the staff lounge, a gauze pad stuffed down her throat. Because the unit is isolated from the rest of the hospital complex, Cat knows one of the staff must be the killer. Is it the trauma surgeon who had recently been replaced as director? The young student nurse from downstate who was being cautioned by the director because of poor work? The attending physician who may have a hidden financial motive that the director discovered? The shy intern from India? The janitor, an ex-substance abuser? Cat thinks she has an idea, but then a second murder occurs. When Cat finally discovers the trauma center's darkest secret, she must fight for her own life, stalked through the hospital kitchens by a desperate killer.
language: English
title: Hard Case
titlecomplete: Hard Case
genres: Mystery
ratings_count: 71
series: Cat Marsala Mystery
publisher: Scribner