Fenton's Winter [Paperback]

The book opens with the grizzly death of Dr Neil Munro. The main character is his best friend, Tom Fenton who also works in the biochemistry department at the Princess Mary Hospital for children. Well, in my ignorance I would normally switch off at that point. What do I know about biochemistry and medical science? But Ken McClure writes with such passion and the story is so realistic and unique that I wouldn't have been able to switch off even if I'd wanted to. The book drew me in and I had to read on....
Tom lives with his girlfriend Jenny Buchan. She is a nurse there. Before Jenny he was happily married with a baby on the way but his wife was killed in a car accident. In fact, life had dealt Tom Fenton a bad hand. After spending three years working in deepest Africa he had learned to come to terms with his wife's death. Now, working at the Princess Mary, assisting in the welfare of children seems to compensate in some way for the child he has lost.
There then follows a series of mysterious deaths in which the victims have all been subjected to a lethal dose of anticoagulant preventing their blood from clotting and resulting in their bleeding to death. Fenton is given the job of looking after Neil Munro's laboratory where he discovers his friend's private research; and so picks up the trail to find the killer.
Ken McClure is an incredibly intelligent award winning medical scientist and his talent in this field becomes more obvious as the book progresses. Fentons Winter kept me on the edge of my seat. It is fast moving, thought provoking, frightening but also realistic and a compelling read. I couldn't put it down. A very clever `must read' book from Ken McClure.

The main characters have depth, and the story is a good mystery with twists and turns that keep the novel interesting. One of my favorite McClure novels.

By now everyone knows I'm a McClure fan, so this is not news. I had to finish reading it the first day I got it, dinner was late that day.