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Summary: The audiobook is great too!
Review: I echo all the praises of Stewart's writing of this story -- and he reads it as well as he wrote it. I found myself driving around the block several times because I couldn't bear to turn off the car...and, although I've enjoyed other audiobooks, this is the only one I've been tempted to bring in the house to continue playing!!
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Summary: A chilling and partial answer to why we have lost our child
Review: Although I find the book very painful to read, James Stewart has chronicled a massive amount of astounding material and has put it in very readable form. He has also given me alot of answers to my questions of these past six years. The question? What happened to my daughter Kristin? We are still looking for someone out there to come forward with any pertinent information about Swango that will be of value to legal authorities to help keep Swango in prison for at least life. Sincerely, Kristin's mother--- Sharon
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Summary: An excellent read, but with a limited scope
Review: I read everything by Stewart and find him almost without peer in his ability to tell a story in a compelling fashion. This book about Dr. Swango is no exception. It is a frightening story and I read it almost straight through. Highly recommended.My only complaint (if you can call it a complaint) is that I disagree with Stewart's attempt to indict the medical establishment because several doctors failed to catch one of the most deceitful sociopaths ever. While I certainly agree with the premise that doctors often cover up for their colleagues incompetence, I'm not sure that this book really proves that point. Indeed while several doctors' incompetence permitted Swango to continue killing, others caught on to him right away. I think the story stands on its own, simply as a remarkable story of one of the scariest people ever. I sense that Stewart felt, given the broader scope of his other books, that he had to do more than simply tell this amazing story, but to try and offer some broader commentary about the medical establishment. For me, this effort simply reinforced that this book's scope is narrow -- but the story is absolutely worthy of Stewarts time and skill, and worth reading.
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Summary: An In Depth & Excellent Read
Review: This book will leave you shaking your head as to how person after person, institution after institution, kept quiet about the 'potential' serial killer, Dr. Michael Swango. Kudos to James Stewart for bringing this to the publics attention and for a clear and concise read of the facts. Hopefully the FBI will assemble the appropriate evidence to preclude Swango's release, which could be in Jan of 2000.
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Summary: A genius for deceit
Review: What is striking about this remarkable story is Swango's genius for deceit. An astonishing number of people were deceived by him. Many were people in positions of responsibility, who clearly ought to have exercised better judgement. A few, only a few, saw right through him, some very early, and understood the evil there. Some of those who did see, were not necessarily the most highly educated. Among those who were taken in were experienced pyschiatrists. Is there any one physician we would think more likely to be able to see into the heart of darkness than a psychiatrist? This suggests to me the difficulty of the problem more than the failure of the individual. Swango's instinct for finding and manipulating lonely and unhappy women is also noteworthy. There is an instinct for exploiting human weakness, need and frailty that is remarkable. I accept Stewart's harsh judgement of the medical education selection process in this case---it obviously failed at every step and turn. Title and responsibility ought to have included accountability and at OSU it did not. Yet, after reading the evidence presented, I am less inclined to believe it was "the establishment" protecting itself and more one of a naive inability to comprehend actions so foreign to all the participants prior experience. These were people whose position suggests they ought not to have been naive. Nevertheless, the harsh criticism offered is fair and justified. As a surgeon, I have participated in the evaluation of questionable credentials in several administrative roles. The process is awesomely complex. Even if a physician is unfit, protecting the public is, as a rule, not within the power of medical committees or the AMA, as so many seem to believe. Several reviews refer to this book with reference to "understanding the decade of greed," a preposterous notion. This book is about mental illness, murder, imperfect humans in an imperfect system and it is very good. A reader in any profession could read this splendid book for insights into how people lie, deceive, deceive themselves and sometimes tell the truth and take the consequences. There are elements of the universal in this story.
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Summary: Superior quality story with a few glitches
Review: I liked "Blind Eye" and after reading it, I don't think I'll ever look at a syringe quite the same way again. I sincerely hope that the FBI and the Zimbabwean authorities are able to build a case against Swango, because from the facts presented in the book, he certainly sounds like a killer. My only complaints are that the book gets a little confusing with all the different names. Also, the passage about the Swango family was a little disjointed.
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Summary: Murder is nothing new
Review: This book and more like it is long overdue. In April of this year my eighty year old father went into the hospital for A BROKEN LEG. Two weeks later he was dead after being given increasing doses of morphine everyday plus a dozen other drugs. In an autopsy, the med. examiner said there were no drugs in his system. Murder of the elderly,and the subsequent coverup, is standard practice in a health care system run by millionaires and billionaires of the industry and the government is part of this slaughterhouse. This book is the tip of the iceberg
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Summary: Compelling reading for aficionados of quality non-fiction.
Review: In "Blind Eye," respected author and investigative journalist James B. Stewart proves that his pool of resources is deep and plentiful. Den of Thieves and Bloodsport are fascinating examples of Stewart's ability to transform non-fiction into a medium just as fascinating as the richest novel, but without sacrificing precision, balance or lack of bias: Stewart's highly readable, minutely-researched facts speak for themselves. Den of Thieves and Bloodsport are also examples of Stewart's rare gift for making specific sectors -- in these cases, "haute finance" and "haute politique" -- available and applicable to the vast majority of readers. Blind Eye shares these qualities with its esteemed predecessors, yet it takes the issue of relevance to the average reader one step further. Blind Eye subject Michael Swango is a doctor who appears to patients and friends alike to be a devoted, personable professional. He pops up in such places as Illinois, South Dakota, and Long Island, NY. In these average, all-American sites, Swango's ability to charm and disarm his patients is devastating both to his victims and to the reader. The havoc he wreaks on grateful, unsuspecting patients in rural Zimbabwe is even more shocking and deplorable. As the book powerfully demonstrates, he is aided and abetted by a reckless, elitist, untouchable medical establishment. The consistency with which his medical colleagues exonerate Swango from the wake of illness and death he leaves behind each time he flees from a hospital or medical clinic is possibly the most horrifying and sobering aspect of this book. A close second is the fact that Swango has never been indicted for murder, and is only months away from continuing to exercise his deadly compulsion. Kudos to Stewart for focusing national and law enforcement attention on one of the most dangerous and underreported killers in American history.
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Summary: Another James Stewart winner!
Review: Once again James Stewart has taken another harrowing true story and masterfully presented it. While this is no "Den of Thieves", Stewart surely succeeds in telling this very bizarre and unsettling tale of murder and deceit. This book reads as if it were a brilliant novel; the most unsettling fact though, is that it is true and some of the most trustest members of our society--our "care-givers"--are the worst of the perpetrators. This is one compelling and disturbing read.
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Summary: A book for anybody who likes true crimes
Review: "Blind Eye" is a very interesting and disturbing book. There were several times throughout the book that made me think that if this guy was a doctor, and nobody suspected him, then what says that no other doctors are doing what he did. A book like "Blind Eye" makes you have second thoughts about doctors, and you shouldn't have to feel that way. A hospital is a place to save lives; not take them, and Michael Swango has probably made a lot of people feel a little queasy about that statement. Also I don't feel comfortable about Swango being released to out society. This is a man who upon his release from prison would most likely have no problem poisoning other individuals that he just doesn't like. Or even poison individuals he doesn't know, just because he can. Overall though, Stewart did an excellent job writing this book, and I would recommend this book to anybody that likes to read mystery, suspense, small thrillers, non-fiction, or true crimes. It keeps you on your toes wondering what is going to happen around the corner, and it always leaves you in a deep cliffhanger. It won't take long to read at all if you get into it, and don't have any distractions to keep you from reading.
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