Gilbert Brinckerhoff

The Make-Believe Doctor is a medical mystery/thriller that takes place in Blackwell, a small Massachusetts town, in the nineteen eighties. The principal character, Jacob Reason, an itinerant internist, comes to town to fill in following the death by suicide of one of the local physicians. He learns that Blackwell has been terrorized by a killer whose victims are young women. He soon finds himself involved in the detection of the Blackwell strangler. In this he is assisted by Liz Denny, a friend from years earlier. Some of the characters include Ross Cassidy, an internist and head of the hospital staff, Tim, another internist, who never grew up, Art, the third man in the medical office and a compulsive gambler, BeeJay who rules the medical office with an iron hand, Todd the janitor with the photographic memory who wants to take the medical boards and practice medicine, and Rowley Nickerson, the local paper’s ace reporter