Not The Deaths Imagined – Anne Pettigrew: Could a local GP be a serial killer?

Now another name can be added to the list – Anne Pettigrew is a retired Greenock GP who has written a brilliant murder mystery. Beth Semple is a Glasgow-based GP; she is on her second marriage and has two teenage daughters.

Her life is full of the usual domestic ups and downs and at work her patients are the usual mix of people who don’t want to bother her, hypochondriacs and the seriously ill.

She has a close-knit family and a number of good friends from university.

One day, Beth notices a number of locals are dying unexpectedly and seemingly from undisclosed illnesses. Of course, people die every day but is someone hastening their demises?

Beth has her suspicions that another local GP, David Goodman, is behind the deaths – akin to Dr John Bodkin Adams in Eastbourne in the 1950s.

Like the Sussex medic, Goodman is benefitting materially from his patients’ death but is that all just a coincidence?

Then Beth begins receiving poison pen letters and silent phone calls and her dog, Winston, is poisoned.

To add to the mix, her daughter Katy is going out with Goodman’s son, Neil.

Is a respected and popular GP really a mass murderer?

Did he kill his own mother?

Why did he change his name? (He’s not the only one in the book to change identity.)

Is criminality hereditary?

Dr Pettigrew has written a great book with an exciting denouement that will keep you gripped to the final page.

There are a few Scottishisms in the tale but you can usually guess what they mean.

I’m looking forward to Dr P’s next book.

Oh by the way, the books benefit Plan UK, part of the Disaster Emergency Fund Group, so you get a cracking read and help a good cause.