Two Docs Writing
Laura is a forensic psychiatrist working in NYC. Graham is an orthopaedic surgeon working in Ontario. Together, they are Two Docs Writing.
CALL GAME
“An exceptional debut novel full of intrigue, surprising twists, and medical stories portraying the drama found every day in the hospital.” -Gary Gerlacher, Bestselling Author of the AJ Docker Series
Chief orthopedic resident, Dr. Rylan Fraser, knows she’s in for a bad on-call night when she arrives in the trauma bay to find a young father barely holding on after a major motorcycle accident. It’s the eve of Thanksgiving, so staffing is thin, but things slide further downhill when she learns her junior resident is AWOL and the blizzard raging outside has stranded her supervising attending in a roadside ditch. This means she must fly solo, breaking the established chain-of-command to perform a series of emergency operations she is almost-but-not-entirely qualified to do on her own.
Just when she thinks things can’t get any worse, they do. In between surgeries, Rylan is summoned to the ward to check on her post-op patients—only to find one after the other dead in their beds.
With stress levels skyrocketing, Rylan teams up with the friendly (and handsome) on-call psychiatrist, Dr. Paul Bennet, to puzzle out what’s happening. Nothing is quite what it seems, though. As the night unfolds, Rylan and Paul are pulled deeper and deeper into a sick cat and mouse game in which their very own lives hang in the balance.
Graham Elder
It all began with storytelling. A suspenseful campfire story with kids on the edge of their seats. A story in the operating room to pass the time while closing an incision (remember Hawkeye from MASH?). A story at the dinner table with the family gathered or maybe a story out on the deck with my wife, Andrea, watching the sunset with a perfect glass of wine…
Laura cody
My dedication to writing began in the second grade when the school literary magazine published my poem “Spiderwebs,” an exploration of stimulus-reaction psychology in one tight verse (…”Once I saw one by the stream, when I saw it I began to scream”…) Nurturing my interests in both the written word and the complexities of the mind, I proceeded to study English at the University of Notre Dame…
What readers say
“An exceptional debut novel full of intrigue, surprising twists, and medical stories portraying the drama found every day in the hospital.” -Gary Gerlacher, Bestselling Author of the AJ Docker Series
“Combines fascinating true-life medical situations and a final twist I did not see coming to offer a suspenseful serial killer thriller that pulled me in and did not release me until the last page. I highly recommend this book.” -Scott Eveloff, MD, author of Do Not Resuscitate
“Grabs hold from the very first chapter and doesn’t let go. With sharp dialogue, vivid characters, and a steadily mounting sense of dread, Call Game keeps the tension high all the way to its haunting and explosive conclusion. A gripping, genre-bending read that I highly recommend.” -Julia Shraybman, author of Lucky 6
“Should come with a warning not to read before bedtime … to call it gripping would be an understatement … I have lost 2 nights’ sleep reading it and just finished the book now … 6:15 am … well done!! 5 stars!!!” -John Clement, author of Musings of the Wandering Whisky Whisperer
Read More
When You Wish Upon A Cloud
No coverage, not even one bar; the battery was dead anyway. It was still daytime, but there was an overcast and the sky had a perfectly even dullness, so there was no way to tell what time of day it was, much less which direction was north or south or anything else for that matter. A two-lane blacktop road snaked up into the distance and disappeared into some trees, or a forest if you wanted to get technical about it. It also snaked down toward some lumpy hills and disappeared there as well. What sounded like a two-stroke chainsaw could be heard in the distance, but it was impossible to tell whether it was up in the forest or down in the lumpy hills. This had been happening more often lately. Two different ways to go, with a dead battery and no bars, and nobody left to blame. The first
Nate, Hate, and the Illusory Transformative Nature of Glass
Written by Laura Cody The first day I met Nate, he told me he was going to kill his dealer. I took it with a grain of salt. I’d been adrift for a while, floating between rock-bottom and moderate dysfunctionality after an epic bender had landed me back in Al-Anon. At forty-two days into recovery, I was keeping distance from my old friends who hung out with my old enemy, the bottle. In fact, the whole reason I was even in Miss Pamela’s Stained Glass Workshop that day was because my counselor said I needed new hobbies and new faces. (That Miss Pamela must’ve offered hefty kickbacks to every addiction counselor in the county because the class was filled with addicts). Nate just happened to be the guy I found myself beside at the worktable on day one when Miss Pamela instructed us to introduce ourselves to our “glassmates.” Contemplating how much
“Curtains”
Written by Graham Elder Foreword This story was submitted as part of the inaugural New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) fiction writing contest last year. The Contest rules were very specific. No more than 1500 words, and contestants must either: Write about the doctor behind the curtain or invent the back story of the patient you didn’t meet until it was too late. I decided to try and accomplish both. Alas, I didn’t win, but it was a fun effort. “Curtains” All doctors have at least one case they wish they could take back – a do-over. A case that sits deep in the pit of their stomachs and rots with time … “What’ve you got for me this morning, Julie?” “A banker, a farmer, and a local GP.” “Is there a joke coming? I asked. “No joke.” She smiled under her mask. “Hmmm. A GP? Anyone I know?” “Well, Mark, since you’re