Fifteen-year-old Jeff wakes up on New Year's Day to find himself in the hospital. Make that the psychiatric ward. With the nutjobs. Clearly, this is all a huge mistake. Forget about the bandages on his wrists and the notes on his chart. Forget about his problems with his best friend, Allie, and her boyfriend, Burke. Jeff's perfectly fine, perfectly normal, not like the other kids in the hospital with him. Now they've got problems. But a funny thing happens as his forty-five-day sentence drags on—the crazies start to seem less crazy.
Frannie O'Neil, a young and talented veterinarian whose husband was recently murdered, comes across a discovery in the woods near her animal hospital. Soon after, Kit Harrison, an FBI agent, arrives on Frannie's doorstep. And then there is eleven-year-old Max.
The members of the Women's Murder Club face an unspeakable menace in the most suspenseful hospital drama since Coma. Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer is shopping with the newest member of the Women's Murder Club, lawyer Yuki Castellano, and Yuki's mother, Keiko, when suddenly Keiko collapses. She's rushed to San Francisco Medical Center where her condition stabilizes. Yet days later, the hospital calls Yuki with devastating news. Keiko was given the wrong medication and it brought on a fatal heart attack.
Hank Brevard, the hospital's plant manager, has had his throat slit from ear to ear, a violent and gruesome crime that no one can make sense of at first. His body is found beside the huge boiler in a 150-year-old section of the hospital's basement. Unsure if the crime has anything to do with the hospital, the local cops, with the unsolicited help of Harry, investigate the victim, the building, and the people in it, though the hospital director, Sam Mahanes, is less than helpful.
Thirteen-year-old Stacey needs the support of the Baby-sitters Club when the pressures of school, work, and home pile up and her diabetes puts her in the hospital.
