NHS GP turns 20 years of frontline experience into gripping debut medical thriller

What happens when the systems designed to protect vulnerable people begin to serve those with power instead?

That unsettling question lies at the heart of What Can’t Be Unseen, the debut medical thriller from British NHS GP Michael Crisp, who has drawn on more than two decades of frontline medical experience to give his fiction an unusually authentic edge.

While the conspiracy at the centre of the novel is entirely fictional, Crisp says the pressures, ethical dilemmas and human stories surrounding it have been shaped by his years working as a doctor.

“Medicine is built on trust,” Crisp told That's Books and More. “But trust can sadly be exploited. The aim of my debut novel was to explore what happens when the systems designed to protect the vulnerable begin to serve power instead.”

The story introduces Dr James Harland, an NHS physician left deeply shaken after being unable to save a young migrant woman in a London emergency department.

However, her death soon becomes considerably more troubling. Toxicology reports reveal an unknown pharmaceutical compound in her blood, drawing Harland into an increasingly dangerous investigation involving illegal drug testing, organised crime and political corruption.

Alongside journalist Emily Morris and his estranged daughter Lucy, Harland faces a choice familiar to many a good thriller protagonist: protect his career and walk away, or risk everything by pursuing a truth that powerful people would rather keep hidden.

Yet What Can’t Be Unseen isn't simply a conspiracy thriller. Crisp uses the story to explore some of the less visible realities of working in medicine, including exhaustion, difficult decisions, professional responsibility and the emotional burden that can follow doctors home after their shifts have ended.

“I have seen how overstretched systems create cracks and how vulnerable people can fall through them,” he explains. “I wanted to explore what could happen if those cracks were deliberately exploited – and who ultimately pays the price.”

There are also themes of family, regret and redemption, with the novel asking how ordinary people might respond when extraordinary circumstances make doing the right thing personally costly.

With shades of medical thrillers in the Michael Crichton tradition combined with the darker territory of contemporary British crime fiction, What Can’t Be Unseen promises readers both a fast-moving mystery and some uncomfortable questions about trust, power and professional ethics.

Crisp continues to practise as a doctor while writing and is already working on his second novel, The Shadow Helix.

What Can’t Be Unseen is published by Foreshore Publishing, priced at £12.99 and available from Amazon at our own bookshop: https://link.amazon/B06iJE6mF

Elisabeth Sladen Autobiography Released

When Elisabeth Sladen first appeared as plucky journalist Sarah Jane Smith in the 1973 Doctor Who story The Time Warrior, little did she know the character would become one of the most enduring and fondly remembered of the series' long history.

The years that followed saw Elisabeth traverse time and space alongside classic Doctors Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, whilst a generation of children crouched behind the sofa, terrified but transfixed as their tea-time heroine found herself menaced by Daleks, dinosaurs, Cybermen, Egyptian mummies, actors in green Bubble Wrap and even the Loch Ness Monster. By the time she quit the TARDIS in 1976, making front-page news, Elisabeth had become one of the most familiar faces of a TV golden age.

But you don't just walk away from Doctor Who. Elisabeth was asked to reprise her role many times, appearing in anniversary specials, an marginally successful 1981 spin-off with robotic sidekick K-9, radio plays, and for the BBC's Children in Need.

She also toured the weird, wide and wonderful world of Doctor Who fandom and became one of the series' all-time favourite companions. So when TV wunderkind Russell T Davies approached her to come back again, this time to a show backed by multi-million-pound budgets and garlanded with critical plaudits, how could she refuse?

This warm and witty autobiography, completed only months before Elisabeth died in April 2011, tells her remarkable story, from humble beginnings in post-war Liverpool, through an acclaimed theatrical career working alongside stage luminaries such as Alan Ayckbourn, to Coronation Street, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and the furthest reaches of the Universe.

A unique insider's view of the world's longest-running science fiction series, and of British television yesterday and today, Elisabeth's memoir is funny, ridiculous, insightful and entertaining and a fitting tribute to a woman who will be sadly missed by millions.

Elisabeth Sladen played Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures. She also appeared in Coronation Street, Z-Cars and Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em among others, and enjoyed a long, successful and very happy career in the theatre. She died in April 2011.

Elisabeth Sladen: the autobiography is published by Aurum Pressat £18.99 
www.aurumpress.co.uk