Emily and Judith Pancoast, elderly sisters, are the owners of a priceless dollhouse that is an exact replica of their Victorian home in a small seaside resort near Philadelphia. The dollhouse is inhabited by dolls that the sisters crafted to resemble each member of their family. On Thanksgiving Day, just before relatives arrive for dinner, Emily Pancoast discovers that the dollhouse dining room table, set in miniature of the real one, is in total disarray and the doll representing their niece Pamela is lying facedown in her dessert plate. When Pamela's death soon follows, the sisters turn to the physician detective, Dr. Andrew Fenimore.
Like so many of Dr. Fenimore's adventures, trouble starts with a harmless idea. From his train window, the good doctor sees a single shell gliding on the surface of the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, an image that stirs up fond memories of his rowing days. Rowing had been the perfect antidote to the hectic rush of medical school, and he wonders why he ever gave it up. He could also use some exercise, as Jennifer, his significant other, broadly hints. So with renewed dedication, he goes knocking on the office door at Boathouse Row to reenroll as a member of the Windsor Club. Charlie Ashburn, whom Dr. Fenimore knows from medical school, is running the club, and they catch up on lost time. Charlie's son, Chuck, is a great rower and is currently training for the big regatta. Talking about Chuck makes Charlie swell with pride, but it makes Fenimore a little uneasy. Charlie was an incredibly talented rower himself but had to give it up because of a serious heart condition. Dr. Fenimore doesn't enjoy his membership for very long before he finds himself drawn into an Ashburn family problem. Charlie's wife comes to his office in secret and begs him to talk to Charlie about getting their son checked out by a doctor. To Dr. Fenimore's surprise, Charlie has been refusing to face the possibility that Chuck might have inherited the same heart defect he has. The doctor agrees to help, and his well-intentioned efforts put his own life at risk. In this fifth Fenimore episode, Robin Hathaway captures Philadelphia's exciting rowing scene and proves once again that when this doctor is in, it's great fun for all.
In Robin Hathaway's The Doctor Dines in Prague, Dr. Fenimore has a surprised communication from a cousin he doesn't know, who lives in Prague, and she indicates that she and her family are having serious problems and needs help from him. Off he goes to Prague to help her in whatever way he can, and decides to get his relatives to the U.S. But it is not simple, and Fenimore pulls in his lover, his secretary, and the street urchin turned teenaged helper, bringing them all to the beautiful old city, where they become tangled with a psychopath who is planning to overthrow the government and declare himself ruler of the country, an agenda that involves a talented maker of puppets, the rescue of a young child, and murder.
Dr. Andrew Fenimore is an old fashioned doctor who is still willing to make house calls to his elderly patients. In his third adventure, a patient's call leads to more detection than medical care. Lydia Ashley, owner of a large farm in Southern New Jersey, is being systematically harassed by someone who wants her land. Dr. Fenimore can't leave his Philadelphia practice, so he sends his nurse Mrs. Doyle and his young assistant Horatio to try to stop the attacks, but the threats continue. When Mrs. Doyle is kidnapped, Dr. Fenimore joins the hunt and learns that hidden treasure is at the root of all the evil deeds.
This is the first book to offer a critical analysis of one variant of the mystery story or novel—the use of a physician as the major detective. There is little difference between a medical “case study” and a mystery story. The book reviews the works of major authors, from R. Austin Freeman, Helen McCloy, Josephine Bell, and H.C. Bailey, to Patricia Cornwell, Kathy Reichs, Aaron Elkins, and Colin Cotterill, with briefer reviews of minor authors. It also addresses historical (fictional) physician detectives, psychological detectives, and physician detective nonfiction. Physicians and health workers are avid readers of detective fiction and will welcome this volume, which addresses their specific interests. Its critical analysis of books that have long been viewed as central to detective fiction will also appeal to fans of the mystery story.
"The strange episode leads to Jo's calling daily to attend to the man's injury. She learns that he's living with his daughter - a grown woman who possesses the mind of a child - that they are from New York, and that his wife has mysteriously disappeared. The printer is roughly grateful for Jo's care, but he has much on his mind, and he will not leave his house. Jo begins to suspect that he is connected to a recent local murder."--BOOK JACKET.
Hathaway's likeable young doctor, Jo Banks, is solidly ensconced as "house doctor" to a group of motels in the New Jersey countryside. Then one day the motel where Jo is living and where she has her office is suddenly over run by a loud group of motorcyclists. When one of the riders is murdered, suspicion falls on Dr. Jo's landlord's son, who turned up after having been presumed either to have permanently gone AWOL or to be lost in battle in Vietnam. Trying to help her friends, and prove that the man is innocent, Jo takes on a lot more than she may be able to handle.
Briefly departing from her Doctor Fenimore stories, Robin Hathaway brings readers Dr. Jo Banks, a young female doctor practicing in Manhattan. When a little patient dies, Banks blames herself. Unable to face her life, she runs---leaving her lover, driving away from New York and through New Jersey without a destination on the highway or in her life. She stops at a motel, and that evening is called upon to treat a woman taken suddenly ill. The episode leads the motel owner to present Jo with a deal. Neither he nor the other motel owners can afford to keep a doctor on hand, but it is sometimes difficult to get one to come out from the nearest city. What they need is a cooperative house doctor---someone who can quickly get to any of the nearby motels. How about it? Jo takes the deal---without knowing that it will involve her in a series of gruesome murders of itinerant farm workers. Full of the wit, charm, and lively settings that have made Hathaway's Doctor Fenimore series so popular, Scarecrow is sure to please.
While at a cooking conference at a Swiss resort, where he is asked to evaluate healthy haute cuisine, the Gourmet Detective's first spa experience may be his last. He's knocked out cold and his date, an attractive food writer, disappears. Then a lawyer shows up to inquire about the stories she and her editor were writing. Seems someone has whipped up the perfect recipe for murder. Martin's Press.
Bill Smith's country cabin in upstate New York is far from the city's savage streets--a retreat where a weary P.I. can play Mozart on his upright piano and let nature heal him. But when Eve Colgate, a local farmer and painter, asks him to find stolen items--six paintings which could reveal Eve's highly guarded thirty-year-old secret--he caves. When Smith's partner, Lydia Chin, comes in on the action, she brings along her cool courage and sharp mind. It's a simple case--until the runaway daughter of a hotshot politician and the murder of a local hood change the playing field. Now the stench of corruption fills this rural paradise, as Bill and Lydia scour through dangerous secrets and greedy corridors for the stone-cold truth...
