A Cause and Manner

Peter Tinits
Works of: Fiction

A sleep-deprived anesthesiologist consults his friends on dealing severely with his wife’s lover. Suspense, dark humour and physicians behaving badly.

A Cause and Manner is a noir psychological thriller. Dr. Matthias Kork is an anesthesiologist and a coroner. There is tension in the operating room between Matt and an elitist surgeon, Angelo Amodeo. There is also tension between Matt and his wife, whom he suspects of having an affair. Her alleged lover dies in what looks like a staged suicide. Angelo disappears next. Matt is either responsible for these events or wished for them hard enough.

Matt is assigned to investigate the boyfriend’s death. Despite the obvious conflict of interest, he accepts the case and brings in a verdict of suicide. The decedent’s family launches a wrongful death lawsuit. At the hearing, their lawyer is on the verge of discovering the love affair that would have given Matt a motive for murder. He admits to all the allegations against him to bring the proceedings to a close. This by no means confirms his guilt.