The essays, short biographies, opinion pieces, and literary reviews collected here were first published in periodicals including the Irish Medical Times, the Irish Medical News, Medicine Weekly, Scope, and the Irish Psychiatrist. Author and doctor McWilliams (St. John of God Hospital, Dublin) examines Irish, European, and American works of fiction about doctors and medicine. The first half of the book gives portraits of the lives, writing, and motivations of doctors who wrote fiction, while the second half looks at non-medical authors who wrote about doctors, patients, and medicine. The author also discusses medical fiction themes such as infection and paranoia. Distributed in the US by Dufour. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)