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Monday, December 08, 2014

Book Review : ‘Fatal Margin' by Umanath Nayak



Umanath Nayak’s ‘Fatal Margin’ could well be India’s very own Robin Cook. Is he? A medical thriller was how it was termed as. Okay, first things first, I do not think that it compares to Robin Cook’s books, and I mean that not in the wrong sense at all.

Veer Raghavan is the main lead. He is an oncologist, who heads to the US to train under the best doctors, in the country. Once there, he meets Dr Jennifer Agnoli, with whom he has a brief affair, both attracted to each other due to their fields. Time passes quickly, before Raghavan finds himself where he wanted to be, i.e. in one of India’s better hospitals in cancer surgery, Paramount Cancer Centre. 

He is quickly married and is back at his gruelling work schedule. But troubles soon follow. He soon finds himself under a CBI investigation, where he is suspected of fraud and negligence. He finds that he has been taken into custody, where he would be tried on malpractice and also not treating his patients correctly. Even the hospital, he is planning to set up comes under the purview of the court.

He finds himself, fighting a lone battle against forces such as a few doctors, who are jealous, and also CBI officer, Madhavan. Will he get out of the whole mess? Will he be able to banish the questions on his ethics, as he tries to find the gap between medicine and the unpredictable disease, such as cancer? 

‘Fatal Margin’ is not a thriller. At least, it did not read as one, due to the lack of suspense and pace. The book would pick up on certain subjects but quickly dispose of them. There were quite a few topics, which met their end a little too quickly, I felt. A decent novel for a debut writer.

Author: Umanath Nayak
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Hachette India
ISBN: 978-93-5009-811-0
Price: Rs 350/-

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