Despite not being on call, Dr. Katie LeClair's house
painting gets interrupted by an urgent call for her to
go to Baxter Community Hospital. Dropping her brush, she
leaves immediately for the hospital. She is the new
doctor in town and has
recently joined the medical practice of Dr. Emmett
Hawkins and his son, Nick, who was to be on call that
night.
One of her patients, Ellen Riley, seems to have taken too
many pills and a suicide attempt is assumed. A very
competent Dr. Matt Gregor has done his best to
resuscitate Ellen, but they can not save her.
Surprisingly, the drug involved is not one that Katie
remembers prescribing for her. When Katie goes to
check Ellen's medical files at her office, they seem to
have disappeared. What is going on? Dubious thoughts
crowd into Katie's mind. Is Emmett covering for his son
Nick? Is it someone else? Who can she trust?
UNNATURAL CAUSES is the debut mystery in a new Dr.
Katie LeClair series centered around the experiences of
a newly graduated doctor, fresh from her residency who
has moved to the small town of Baxter, Michigan, that is
not too far from Ann Arbor. Dr. Katie LeClair is a very
likeable and intelligent character who loves her job and
wants to do her best for her patients as well as for her
friends. Katie has recently moved into a new place with
her brother, Caleb. They get along well, especially as
he likes to cook and is a whiz with a computer.
One of the best features of UNNATURAL CAUSES is Eastman's
ability to bring a very authentic voice and sense of time
and place to this small town and its members right from
the first page to the last. This is well expressed in
the relationship between Katie and Baxter Police Chief
John Carlson. They started off well, yet both are a
little suspicious of the capabilities and motivations of
the other.
UNNATURAL CAUSES can easily be read as a stand-alone
novel, yet readers, we are lucky that Eastman intends
this to be a mystery series. I particularly look forward
to reading more about Dr. Katie LeClair and how events in
Baxter will unfold. Lots can happen in small towns and
Eastman really knows how to capture those small town
mannerisms and attitudes! I also want to check in on how
things might or might not progress with Dr. Matt.
As a first book in a series, Eastman spends more time on
character development than in making deep intrigue.
Still, her plotting is well layered and the main
characters are well developed and tensions or happiness
between them are nicely pulled out, both in the humor
and anger. Eastman has put in a lot of research to make
this story ring true and to make it a real whodunit!
If you are looking for a new mystery author to follow, do
check out Dawn Eastman. Find out what is happening in
Michigan in UNNATURAL CAUSES and then we can both eagerly
anticipate what happens the next Dr.
Katie LeClair
mystery!
Katie LeClair has finally settled down as the new doctor in
Baxter, MI. After years of moving, schooling, and training, she
wants nothing more than to find a place she can call home, and
a small town outside of Ann Arbor seemed perfect.
Katie quickly gets to work in building a life for herself in
Baxter, and beyond reviving her love life, she also finds a
pair of business partners in a team of father and son family
practitioners. But that idyllic dream is immediately shattered
when one of her patients is found dead. That wouldn't be the
worst thing, except the death is ruled a suicide, and as
evidence has it, the suicide was a result of the medication
Katie had prescribed. But she doesn't remember writing it.
When a closer investigation reveals it was murder, Katie is
catapulted into an off-the-books investigation that leads her
down a dark path of past secrets. But someone is willing to
kill to keep part of the town's history in the shadows, and
Katie must race to find out who before it's too late in
nationally bestselling author Dawn Eastman's riveting series
debut UNNATURAL CAUSES.
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