A true crime story that takes place in a VAMC. This one hit close to home since I'm a nurse. ( )

Very long ( )

on Thursday, March 29, 2007 I wrote:


I read this book, which is not a small one, pretty quick. This is a great true crime book. Very well written, interesting from page 1 till the end.
Highly recommend if you like to read True Crime


( )

Kristen Gilbert was known as a hardworking, dedicated nurse, however, there were so many emergencies and sudden deaths during her shift on Ward C that colleagues jokingly called her the “Angel of Death”. They had no idea how close they were to the truth. Gilbert was a scheming, manipulative liar and homicidal, narcissistic sociopath, a serial killer.

Her victims were her patients, people who trusted her to care for them, her weapon was a syringe filled with lifesaving medicine that used incorrectly can cause fatal heart attacks. Investigators believe she may be responsible for as many as 40 deaths before three of her fellow nurses came forward, unable to ignore the number of deaths on Gilbert’s watch. In March 2001, she was found guilty of four counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

When I hear someone recommend a true crime (TC) book because “it reads like a novel” my standard response is, “If I wanted to read something that “reads like a novel, I’ll read a novel”. I believe this is the first TC book by M. William Phelps that I have read but it will not be my last. He may have just moved into my “favorite TC author slot”. Shh don’t tell Kathryn.

This book has an incredible amount of detail and while not reading like a novel it is not a dry recitation of facts. But there are a lot of things happening, he details the deaths and her actions while working, then her behavior during the investigation, harassing witnesses, stalking and even phoning in a bomb threat to the hospital. Mr. Phelps has brought out the facts you need to know to understand what happened, there is not a lot of skipping about and he gives you the details of the trail, along with the testimony without the dry court transcript feel. I definitely recommend this book to true crime fans. ( )

This is an intriguing subject; however, it was very poorly written and narrated (The narrator mispronounces cellulitis as cellutitis, a word that does not exist, repeatedly in one section). Having just listened to Blind Eye by James B. Stewart on a similar subject I realized how even a story as fascinating as this one can suffer due to poor writing skills. The dialog between the subjects of the book is terrible and it seems to go on and on! Having just listened to another of his books I realize this is a technique that is the standard of this author and his work suffers greatly because of this. ( )