A Case of Need (Jeffrey Hudson nee Michael Crichton)

A Case of Need

I cried when Michael Crichton died. He was such an incredible author, his choices for subject matter were thoughtfully chosen, and painstakingly researched. He was able to make you truly believe that we could one day live in a world with a dinosaur amusement park; I am now terrified of primates in general (including humans, tbh.)

One of the prompts on my book challenge this year is "a book by an author with a pseudonym." So, since the idea is generally that a book is written with a pen name so that people don't know the author's real name, this was a little tougher. I started by Googling author's with pseudonyms, and a list of "famous" authors who had used pen names at some point came up. After the ordeal with Stephen King's It I had no desire to read anything by him (especially since most of those books were from the same coke-binge phase.) I've already read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland a billion times, and Tom Sawyer is not one of my favorites. Then I saw Michael Crichton. Holy shit! I am so excited! Apparently he wrote a score of books while still in school that have been republished. I leapt at the chance.

This is somewhere between a whodunnit and a medical procedural, making it obvious what Crichton was studying at the time (medicine.) After his best friend is arrested for the death of a girl following an abortion, pathologist John Berry begins trying unravel what really happened and whether his friend had anything to do with it. The social twists and turns are gripping, and I stayed up late 2 nights in a row devouring every page.

It is obviously a more novice work compared to Micro, Timeline, or State of Fear, but I still highly recommend it, especially to anyone who is a fan of Crichton's later works.

The Book
🌹🌹🌹🌹

The Writing
🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️

Readability
🕰️🕰️🕰️🕰️🕰️