Do No Harm
Named a Best Book of 2021 by Real Simple
From the USA TODAY bestselling author of Behind Every Lie and The Night Olivia Fell comes an unforgettable and heart-wrenching novel about the lengths one woman will go to save her son.
Emma loves her life. She’s the mother of a precocious kindergartener, married to her soulmate—a loyal and loving police detective—and has a rewarding career as a doctor at the local hospital.
But everything comes crashing down when her son, Josh, is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.
Determined to save him, Emma makes the risky decision to sell opioids to fund the life-saving treatment he needs. But when somebody ends up dead, a lethal game of cat and mouse ensues, her own husband leading the chase. With her son’s life hanging in the balance, Emma is dragged into the dark world of drugs, lies, and murder. Will the truth catch up to her before she can save Josh?
A timely and moving exploration of a town gripped by the opioid epidemic, and featuring Christina McDonald’s signature “complex, emotionally intense” (Publishers Weekly) prose, Do No Harm examines whether the ends ever justify the means...even for a desperate mother.
From the USA TODAY bestselling author of Behind Every Lie and The Night Olivia Fell comes an unforgettable and heart-wrenching novel about the lengths one woman will go to save her son.
Emma loves her life. She’s the mother of a precocious kindergartener, married to her soulmate—a loyal and loving police detective—and has a rewarding career as a doctor at the local hospital.
But everything comes crashing down when her son, Josh, is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.
Determined to save him, Emma makes the risky decision to sell opioids to fund the life-saving treatment he needs. But when somebody ends up dead, a lethal game of cat and mouse ensues, her own husband leading the chase. With her son’s life hanging in the balance, Emma is dragged into the dark world of drugs, lies, and murder. Will the truth catch up to her before she can save Josh?
A timely and moving exploration of a town gripped by the opioid epidemic, and featuring Christina McDonald’s signature “complex, emotionally intense” (Publishers Weekly) prose, Do No Harm examines whether the ends ever justify the means...even for a desperate mother.
BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
Thank you NetGalley and Gallery Books for a free galley of this book in exchange for my honest review. I enjoyed The Night Olivia Fell by Christina McDonald so was really looking forward to digging into Do No Harm. The premise of this crime thriller sounded promising but unfortunately it was very disappointing. The plot wasn't plausible, every twist felt like such a leap, and even the dialogue/relationships amongst the characters felt contrived. As a mom who would literally do almost anything for my own children, I surprisingly felt zero connection to the main character, Emma. If I didn't owe a review for this book, it would have been a DNF at the halfway point. It took me several attempts to finish this book because I kept falling asleep.
With Do No Harm, Christina McDonald has crafted yet another fast-moving thriller with a mother at the center of the story. This time, however, the female protagonist, Emma, is faced with a moral dilemma. How far will she go to save her child? What is she willing to do to ensure that her five-year-old Josh gets the treatment he needs when he is diagnosed with leukemia? The treatment most likely to cure him is CAR T-cell therapy, a form of immunotherapy in which T cells are collected from the patient and genetically altered in a laboratory before being returned to the patient's body. They serve as fighter cells that attack cancer cells. The treatment is not covered by insurance and carries a $500,000 price tag. And the hospital will not deliver the treatment to Josh until one-fifth of the cost is paid in advance. So Emma is desperate. She and her detective husband, Nate, simply do not have either that much cash or assets they can liquify to raise it. They don't even own their home and Emma is still making student loan payments. There is a possibility that Nate will be promoted in the near future, but that advancement in his career is not assured and will not generate the amount of money needed.
Emma is all too familiar with the opioid crisis because she has encountered patients and would-be patients in search of prescriptions, some of whom have become addicted as a result of chronic, unrelenting pain. Others have been victimized by physicians who did not prescribe medication judiciously in order to prevent addiction. So she knows there is a ready market for prescriptions for Oxycontin, and she begins selling them, issued on prescription pads stolen from the clinic where she works, upon which she forges her colleague's names.
If the plot sounds preposterous, consider McDonald's very personal inspiration for the book. Her own brother was addicted to Oxycontin and overdosed. The book is dedicated to him. McDonald notes that the medication to which he became hooked was prescribed to him by a physician and "perfectly legal." For quite some time, she wanted to write a book set against the backdrop of the American opioid crisis, and her strong opinions and emotions are on display in her fictional narrative. One day McDonald happened upon a news story about a podiatrist involved in an opioid ring. "I wondered why he did it: was it money, power, status?" McDonald relates. "What would drive someone to do that? And I thought, what would make me sell opioids amidst a horrific epidemic? The only answer I had was love. My children. And that was the moment I first thought of the story for Do No Harm."
As the story opens, Emma and Nate are happy, still deeply in love after several years of marriage, and fully committed to each other, their marriage, and their son. Both have successful, satisfying careers in the small fictional town of Skamania, Washington, which McDonald fashioned after Snoqualmie. McDonald says it was very important to her that the town be named Skamania because in Cascades Chinook it means "swift waters" and she knows all too well that "circumstances can change very fast once a person becomes addicted." Indeed, she immediately places her characters in some very deep, swiftly running, dramatic waters. Nate is assigned to investigate the homicide of a local informant who was heavily involved in drug trafficking, but warned that he will be removed from the case if the evidence leads back to Emma's brother, Ben, from whom she has been estranged for years. Ben has a criminal history and is suspected of being the leader of a drug ring. Only in a little town with a small police force would such a potential conflict of interest be disregarded. But it's the plot device needed to set in motion the series of developments that frenetically propel the story forward.
Because of her own complicated past, Emma knows just who to go to in order to sell the prescriptions. She turns to her old boyfriend, confident that he will be able to sell the prescriptions quickly so that she can get the cash she needs to ensure that Josh receives the first treatment before his condition worsens. After she negotiates the deal, money begins rolling in. But her behavior takes an immediate toll on her and her relationships with her family. Nate begins to suspect that something other than Josh's illness is amiss, and they start drifting apart because Emma knows she will not be able to hid the truth from him indefinitely. Emma is on high alert, edgy, and sneaking around in fear of the severe, life-altering consequences she will endure if she is caught. McDonald credibly and compassionately portrays her singular focus on seeing to it that Josh is provided the best possible chance to survive. Her internal struggle is heartbreakingly believable, especially when she lapses into moments of believing that she is actually providing a service to those who suffering from intractable pain who cannot obtain medication via legitimate means.
Do No Harm is a thoroughly riveting thriller, replete with surprising, intricately-constructed plot developments and revelations. There is no imaginable character more empathetic than a mother driven to save her deathly-ill child, no matter the cost to herself, and McDonald capably portrays not just Emma's anguish, but that of Nate and Nate's mother, as well. Josh is a charming little boy who asks questions that no child should ever have to pose to his parents, and the unscrupulous characters with whom Emma becomes entangled are equally believable. McDonald does not shy away from developments in the story that are logical, but heartbreaking, and keeps accelerating the pace right up to the conclusion. At numerous junctures, she offers readers the opportunity to ponder what they would do should they find themselves in similar circumstances, making Do No Harm an excellent choice for book clubs. McDonald acknowledges that her goal was to "get people talking about the opioid epidemic, discussing the driving factors behind it and what we as a society can do to help those who struggle." She has succeeded: the issues she examines provide plenty of material to discuss and debate.
Do No Harm again demonstrates why McDonald is one of today's strongest female novelists, penning breathlessly engrossing thrillers that balance action with emotionally-rich character studies. Do No Harm is sure to be recognized as one of the best thrillers of the year.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
Emma is all too familiar with the opioid crisis because she has encountered patients and would-be patients in search of prescriptions, some of whom have become addicted as a result of chronic, unrelenting pain. Others have been victimized by physicians who did not prescribe medication judiciously in order to prevent addiction. So she knows there is a ready market for prescriptions for Oxycontin, and she begins selling them, issued on prescription pads stolen from the clinic where she works, upon which she forges her colleague's names.
If the plot sounds preposterous, consider McDonald's very personal inspiration for the book. Her own brother was addicted to Oxycontin and overdosed. The book is dedicated to him. McDonald notes that the medication to which he became hooked was prescribed to him by a physician and "perfectly legal." For quite some time, she wanted to write a book set against the backdrop of the American opioid crisis, and her strong opinions and emotions are on display in her fictional narrative. One day McDonald happened upon a news story about a podiatrist involved in an opioid ring. "I wondered why he did it: was it money, power, status?" McDonald relates. "What would drive someone to do that? And I thought, what would make me sell opioids amidst a horrific epidemic? The only answer I had was love. My children. And that was the moment I first thought of the story for Do No Harm."
As the story opens, Emma and Nate are happy, still deeply in love after several years of marriage, and fully committed to each other, their marriage, and their son. Both have successful, satisfying careers in the small fictional town of Skamania, Washington, which McDonald fashioned after Snoqualmie. McDonald says it was very important to her that the town be named Skamania because in Cascades Chinook it means "swift waters" and she knows all too well that "circumstances can change very fast once a person becomes addicted." Indeed, she immediately places her characters in some very deep, swiftly running, dramatic waters. Nate is assigned to investigate the homicide of a local informant who was heavily involved in drug trafficking, but warned that he will be removed from the case if the evidence leads back to Emma's brother, Ben, from whom she has been estranged for years. Ben has a criminal history and is suspected of being the leader of a drug ring. Only in a little town with a small police force would such a potential conflict of interest be disregarded. But it's the plot device needed to set in motion the series of developments that frenetically propel the story forward.
Because of her own complicated past, Emma knows just who to go to in order to sell the prescriptions. She turns to her old boyfriend, confident that he will be able to sell the prescriptions quickly so that she can get the cash she needs to ensure that Josh receives the first treatment before his condition worsens. After she negotiates the deal, money begins rolling in. But her behavior takes an immediate toll on her and her relationships with her family. Nate begins to suspect that something other than Josh's illness is amiss, and they start drifting apart because Emma knows she will not be able to hid the truth from him indefinitely. Emma is on high alert, edgy, and sneaking around in fear of the severe, life-altering consequences she will endure if she is caught. McDonald credibly and compassionately portrays her singular focus on seeing to it that Josh is provided the best possible chance to survive. Her internal struggle is heartbreakingly believable, especially when she lapses into moments of believing that she is actually providing a service to those who suffering from intractable pain who cannot obtain medication via legitimate means.
Do No Harm is a thoroughly riveting thriller, replete with surprising, intricately-constructed plot developments and revelations. There is no imaginable character more empathetic than a mother driven to save her deathly-ill child, no matter the cost to herself, and McDonald capably portrays not just Emma's anguish, but that of Nate and Nate's mother, as well. Josh is a charming little boy who asks questions that no child should ever have to pose to his parents, and the unscrupulous characters with whom Emma becomes entangled are equally believable. McDonald does not shy away from developments in the story that are logical, but heartbreaking, and keeps accelerating the pace right up to the conclusion. At numerous junctures, she offers readers the opportunity to ponder what they would do should they find themselves in similar circumstances, making Do No Harm an excellent choice for book clubs. McDonald acknowledges that her goal was to "get people talking about the opioid epidemic, discussing the driving factors behind it and what we as a society can do to help those who struggle." She has succeeded: the issues she examines provide plenty of material to discuss and debate.
Do No Harm again demonstrates why McDonald is one of today's strongest female novelists, penning breathlessly engrossing thrillers that balance action with emotionally-rich character studies. Do No Harm is sure to be recognized as one of the best thrillers of the year.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.