When a colleague’s patient suffers a bizarre reaction in the operating room, Luke Daulton, a newly minted anesthesiologist, volunteers to help. Despite the surgical team’s best efforts, the patient succumbs to a rare anesthetic complication. Luke becomes perplexed, even suspicious, over their inability to save the woman. Is it possible that the diagnosis was wrong? Or, worse yet, was the diagnosis faked? Luke even wonders if his boss Dr. Katz is involved.

Too busy with the rigors of new job and his pending fatherhood, Luke is forced to put his suspicions on hold. When his wife Kim faces a C-section, his fears are reignited. Could there be a murderer—or murderers—operating in his hospital? Could his wife’s obstetrician be involved? When the C-section goes horribly wrong, Luke must launch into action to save his wife and baby and expose a conspiracy he’s uncovered in his hospital. 

"Luke Daulton, an anesthesiologist at Swatara Regional Hospital in Hershey, Pa., who was a respected senior resident in his previous job at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, helps a panicky fellow doctor perform a C-section on an overweight patient in the Swatara delivery room. To Luke’s surprise, this life-saving act leads to an odd warning from Dr. Jason Katz, the head of Swatara’s anesthesia department. Meanwhile, lawyer Bart Hinkle is prepared to take drastic measures in dealing with his troublesome wife; Russell Pierce, a prominent U.S. senator, is scheduled for gallbladder surgery; and Luke’s pregnant wife nears full term. The reader soon learns that Katz and his thuggish aide, hospital orderly Nikolai Andropov, are up to no good. The OR scenes play out with satisfactory urgency even as Katz’s evil machinations strain credulity." — Publishers Weekly

John Benedict is a board-certified anesthesiologist in private practice in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Penn State University College of Medicine where he also completed a cardiac anesthesia fellowship. Benedict attributes his writing success to the medical authenticity that he brings to his gritty medical thrillers. As one of only a handful of anesthesiologists throughout the country writing fiction, he gives readers unique insights into the human drama, the high stress, and the life-and-death environment of the operating room. Fatal Complications is his third novel, following Adrenaline and The Edge of Death. Dr. Benedict lives in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, with his wife and three sons.