I was intimately affected by the bombing in Dublin in 1974. As depicted in the excerpt from the book (see my website: http://maxburgerauthor.ag-sites.net/ I was a student assisting in the surgery of a victim. The description of the procedure was real. Our uncertainty of both the outcome and the identity of the victim was real as well. Never having experienced the chaos of a trauma case when minutes could mean life or death, and the unpredictability of the outcome, made me acutely aware of the tension in the room. As primarily an observer, my mind raced over the possibility of what might happen and the sad anonymity of a John Doe. The nature of the injury and the markings on the body only added to my questions. This man may have gotten his wounds in any number of ways; the speed that was needed to repair them did not allow for careful review and analysis with a plan for the outcome as it might in an elective surgery. The black rose tattoo added to the questions — a symbol of the Irish resistance to British rule. Whether this person was a member of the IRA or just a proud Republican, I never found out, but the question prompted a momentary pause in the surgery and, for me, the idea of a story of identity. The idea of a pathologist who puts together the pieces came naturally since a dead person could tell a story even if it had to be translated by the skillful eyes and hands of a pathologist. I had seen enough autopsies as a student to know the process and practiced medicine long enough to know the diseases that inhabited the bodies of the dead.
The politics of the time overlaid all the facets of Irish life but were brought into sharp focus with the bombing. I, as most students, was more involved in my social life and studying than following the news which was most violent in Northern Ireland and along the border, as distant as the war in Vietnam was a series of terrible stories that I left at home. We were relatively safe in Dublin until the reality of the violence hit the peaceful city. We all were changed with the bombings, as was my protagonist, Harold Stokes, and his assistant, Samantha Monaghan. Actions needed to be taken.
This is now a work of history and memory, but the circumstances felt very real. I wrote the novel to work through the feelings I couldn’t forget.
EVEN IN DEATH
After the Dublin car bombings in 1974, Harold Stokes, ME, and his new assistant, Samantha Monaghan, begin the last autopsy of the casualties. This unidentified victim is not an Irishman, but an Israeli, killed by a bullet, not a bomb. Before they can finish their task, the body is stolen. Stokes and Monaghan hunt for the victim, but Stokes is also looking for the killers who caused his wife and daughter’s bombing deaths two years before. In their hunt, he and his impetuous young assistant are enmeshed in a web of IRA and Palestinian arms trades with a terrorist known as the Jackal, the Mossad, more factional killings, and the manipulations of an Irish ex-minister using his power to take advantage of the turmoil.
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Max Burger is a retired Family Physician, His novel Even In Death, a mystery/thriller of a 1970s Dublin pathologist searching for a stolen body, was published by Rogue Phoenix Press in December 2023. He has completed another novel, My Father’s Father, a Holocaust Family Saga. The first chapter was published in October 2023 in Embark, a literary magazine, and another excerpt, “Lost and Found,” was published in jewishfiction.com in September 2024. He has published personal interest stories in Medical Economics, JAMA, and AMA News.
Ladies of Mystery 
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