“A thriller, and a whacking good thriller, too . . . shows how much can be done within a classic form by a writer who knows his business.”—The New York Times Alex Cutter is a scarred and crippled Vietnam veteran, obsessed with a murder he’s convinced his buddy, Richard Bone, witnessed. That it was committed by the powerful tycoon JJ Wolfe only makes Cutter even surer that Bone saw the unthinkable. Captivated by Cutter’s demented logic, Bone is prepared to cross the country with Cutter in search of proof of the murder. Their quest takes them into the Ozarks—home base of the Wolfe empire—where Bone discovers that Cutter is pursuing both a cold-blooded killer, but also an even bigger and more elusive enemy. “Tense, funny, and despairing . . . charged with a passion that makes even grotesques seem likeable and, more important, credible right up to the last, startling sentence.”—Time “May be the quintessential cult crime classic . . . continues to be cited by other writers as groundbreaking . . . The ending is pure Chinatown, with a dose of Easy Rider, and it leaves us reeling.”—Booklist (starred review) Praise for Newton Thornburg “A commanding writer of unusual delicacy and power.”—The New Yorker “A born storyteller.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch “One of the truly great American writers of the 20th century.”—The Guardian

Dory finds herself involuntarily committed to a mental institution and has no memory of how she got there. She is assigned to a counseling group where she doesn't belong. The people in this group have a very peculiar addiction. The addiction to getting high by carving into their own bodies. They slice themselves open, down to the bone. Then they chisel and scrape the bone into dust and snort it, smoke it, or cook it and inject it. It's called Dusting and it is the most intense and dangerous high known to man. Dory's never heard of Dusting. The thought of someone mutilating their own body just to get high disturbs her to no end. She thinks these people are sick and wants nothing to do with them. But when the Dusters start to see her as a drug, Dory realizes that she's become a target. They want to use her. They want to get to her bones. Fresh bones give the most intense high and Dori has never been dusted. The hospital staff doesn't believe her. She's crazy, remember? It doesn't matter what she tells them. They keep her locked in a padded room and force her to keep going to the group. But Dory is not as crazy as they think and she must find a way to escape before it's too late. Like Girl Interrupted and The Yellow Wallpaper, The Bone Cutters is one woman's dark and surreal experience with a madness that is not necessarily her own.

Dory wakes up in the padded room of a psychiatric hospital with no recollection of how she wound up there. She soon finds out she's been Blue-Papered--involuntarily committed. She gets sent to the wrong counseling group and discovers a whole new world of psychiatric patients she'd never known existed. At first she just thinks they're cutters, all marked by similar scars, but then she finds out that those scars are from carving into their bodies where they chisel and scrape their bones. They harvest bone dust. This dust is highly coveted and sought after, as well as highly addictive. When they realize she's never been "dusted", Dory becomes their target. After all, dust from a "freshie" is much more valuable than theirs. Frightened for her life, she desperately tries to prove to the psych. hospital staff that she's not delusional about these particular patients wanting to slice her open and scrape her bones. The staff doesn't believe her. They all think she's crazy. Dory ends up on the run, fighting for her life, trying to avoid getting "dusted" by The Bone Cutters. Like Girl, Interrupted and "The Yellow Wallpaper", The Bone Cutters is one woman's dark and surreal experience with a madness that is not necessarily her own.

It is somewhat unusual to read about the profession of surgery in the harsh conditions that were the world of physicians and surgeons who worked for the British Army. Graham Cope has given us an insight to this world but it isn't for the faint of heart, so the reader should brace themselves. May 1793The Austrian Netherlands Having executed their King, Revolutionary France declared war on Britain and her allies, threatening now to destroy their Royal Households. Recently widowed Andrew Jardine, leaves his infant daughter behind and enrolls in the army as a surgeon's mate. He experiences harsh army life, encounters bloody and brutal surgery and treats the rampant diseases with only blood-letting and herbs. The young Prince Frederick, Duke of York has been sent by his father, King George III, to command his troops. Despite his inexperience he initially meets with success, but circumstances combine ultimately to result in a devastating failure.

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance and bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City and back again, Cutting for Stone is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles—and two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined.