A Case of Need

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Summary: Ert...
Review: Wow. I'm not a very big Crichton fanatic... I've only recently read a few of his books, Sphere included, and I think they're absolutely amazing... I loved the way he included footnotes and indexes.. not only did they help with the tone of the book (i sound like an idiot), I could actually understand the medical terminology >.< ! Does Crichton have a bone to pick with Catholics? Or did those parts go completely over my head? Anyway, the parts that I did comprehend were absolutely fantastic.

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Summary: A case of career change
Review: As is mentioned by other reviewers here, this is Crichton's first novel, a medical mystery written under an assumed name. Its success convinced him to pursue a career as a writer, rather than medicine. As it took me two career changes to find my own niche, and about 10 more years than it took Crichton, I can relate. He made the right move.

I ran across this novel in paperback at the library. Having not read any of Crichton's work since "The Andromeda Strain" long ago (still a favorite), having been sidetracked from reading much for a few years, I was delighted to find that this very dissimilar story is comparable in terms of not talking down to its audience. Subjective comment, no doubt, but I read it right after "The Client," my first Grisham read, which was a tremendous disappointment in this department, written on a grade school level.

Crichton moves his characters in and out of the story well in "ACoN," and doesn't make the mistake of shoving his readers' noses into plot points by telling them how to think about what's happening. The story involves a pathologist, Dr. Berry, who finds that one of his best friends has been charged with a murder that he is sure was not committed by his friend, although at first he only has intangible belief in said friend's innocence.

A remarkable travail through the halls of medical power lead him closer and closer to what really happened, and the sense of danger Dr. Berry labors under is relayed quite well through the events of his investigation to clear his friend; no one else wants to disturb the powers-that-be enough to contradict the official story that Dr. Berry's friend is obviously guilty, and that gap forces Berry into the role of investigator, a frame of mind he is familiar with as a pathologist but not from interviewing living people about an event he can't put under a microscope. The character, thus thrust out of his comfort zone, is certainly rough around the edges and refreshing to read.

Crichton's genius partly lies in his ability to present heroic characters who are decidedly unheroic people thrust into extraordinary situations. Since real life often works like this, handing each of us challenges where we rise or fall to the occasion, his tales ring true even when the events are extraordinary. I'm now reading "Rising Sun" and finding the same bluntness of characterization that I appreciate, and am amused to find that other reviewers here think his characterizations are weak. Hey, Crichton's no Dostoyevsky, but he doesn't talk down to me. I'm a fan.

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Summary: Only if you're a crichton fan
Review: the only people that will like this book are michael crichton fans. Anyone else will use it as a coaster. The character have no depth, the dialogue is contrived to the tenth degree, and like all his books, the ending is rushed. I love him but his ending rush to fast and he tries to make up for them by adding filling. He seems to give up interest by the end and just wants to end and get it over with.

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Summary: A Rough Start for Michael Crichton
Review: "A Case of Need" is worth reading for a devoted Crichton fan if for no other reason than to mark how much Mr. Crichton has improved since this debut novel. You may criticize that his characters are flat, and dialogue is sometimes lacking; but after you have read "A Case of Need," you will be amazed how much Mr. Crichton has improved in his writerly abilities since 1969.

The daughter of a prominent doctor dies after having had a botched abortion. A close friend of the protagonist, Dr. John Berry, pathologist, is accused. To muddy the waters, the friend Dr. Lee does do abortions, which were illegal at the time, but is highly professional and is extremely unlikely to have done the deed. Dr. Berry is complicit in that he has supplied Dr. Lee with fake pathology reports to cover the abortions. Dr. Berry sets out to clear Lee to save both of them.

Dr. John Berry wins my 2003 prize as Most Unlikable Protagonist. He is rude, arrogant, moody and humorless. Oh, and did I say "arrogant"? His sleuthing method is to barge in on people, insult them, scream at them and wonder why they aren't inclined to cooperate with him. The author patronizes the reader by explaining each medical term with an asterisk (*). Not only does it slow down the story, half the time we already know the meaning and the other half it doesn't matter. The dialogue is so bad; it is painful. Along with most beginning writers, there are far too many characters for the reader to sort out. The accused Dr. Lee is presented in such an unfavorable way (he and the detestable Dr. Berry were made for each other), the reader doesn't much care if stays in jail or not.

I enjoy the Michael Crichton stories, from the "Andromeda Strain" to "Jurassic Park." He is a champion page-turner. But he was wise to use an assumed name when publishing "A Case of Need."
-sweetmolly-Amazon.com Reviewer

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Summary: Everyone must read this book
Review: Let's dismiss the fact that Crichton is a great novelist for a moment. Now let's take a look at A Case of Need. The writer obviously knows a lot about medicine. Besides that he can write a heck of a suspenseful fiction story. Now we will take back into account the fact that the writer is Crichton. You can truly say that he is one of the best fiction and science fiction novelists during our day and age. If you like his other books you will definitely love this one.

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Summary: A good classic detective story, but gets muddled in the end
Review: That was basically it. I really liked the first three quarters of the book--up to the point where Berry first meets with Wilson the lawyer. I was sitting there, with my teeth on edge, waiting for something momentous to happen next, and... it went flat. The ending left waaaaay too many characters just hanging--the father, the stepmother, the other doctors. In general, there were too many of them--doctors Berry meets casually, their names too similarly Anglo-Saxon, their little habits unmemorable--it was difficult to keep up with the names.

What I really liked was the little look into what goes on in the world of medicine--and little hamburger places! I don't think I'll ever have a hamburger again in my life... It was also a fascinating, albeit a harrowing, look into the time when the rich women in this country were sent to have their abortions to Puerto Rico, and the poor ones--down dark alleys.

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Summary: Crichton's First and One of his Best
Review: I've read three books by Michael Crichton: Case of Need, Airframe and Timeline. They have all been good, but this one was excellent in the way that it handled the very controversial topic of abortion. Whether you are pro-choice or pro-life you will probably agree that this book was well written. It's not hard to believe that he helped create ER after reading A Case of Need.

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Summary: Case of Need
Review: The novel Case of Need, by Michel Crichton, is a suspenseful mystery. An abortionist named Art Lee has been accused of murder by abortion. The main character Dr. Berry, a friend of Art Lee, is trying to keep Art out of prison. Dr. Berry is a coroner who believes that Dr. Lee is innocent. The girl who is killed, Karen Randall, was a wild girl who was into drugs and sex. She had already had an abortion four times before she died.
The suspense in this story goes in patterns. Like most mystery novels the beginning starts out slow. As the story progresses, the anticipation starts to get more suspenseful. The author uses suspense because it keeps you wanting more. The author wants you to be on the edge of your seat throughout the novel. The basic plot in this novel is that Dr. Berry is trying to get enough information to prove that Art Lee is innocent. The main conflict is finding the information. No one wants to give him any information because they don't want to get caught up in the murder case.
The novel shows how real friends should act. In the end Dr. Berry shows the court that Art Lee is innocent and that he had been set up. Although Art is safe he still moves away to pursue a better profession in the field of medicine. I think this was a suspenseful novel. It was a little slow at the beginning but then picked up in the end and kept me reading.

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Summary: A Case of Need
Review: I absolutly loved this book. A usual Michael Crichton suspense with a twist medical ending. A must read for adults of all ages.

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Summary: Getting a Senior to read at the end of the year
Review: For a high school SENIOR who would rather rent the movie than read the book just to make life easy I decided to actually read the book. I have never been soo interested in a novel. The dirty little deeds and the way that they tried to get away with it. The part that got me was when the truth came out about the marriage. The plot twist were incredible I read no less than forty pages a day, I made myself put the book down at 11:30 pm or I would be up all night reading. M.C. did an impecable job on this novel.