Marina Auer, Ashley Elston, Martina Cole With Jacqui Rose

It's New Year's Day in 2001 when anaesthetist Dr Murphy Meyer arrives at Eden State Hospital, a semirural hospital near Pietermaritzburg, for her first day at work. The neglect everywhere is an eyesore, from the pitted, potholed road leading up to the hospital to the shabby, brutalist 70s building surrounded by faded prefabs running with rats. Meyer has a reason for applying to work at this God-forsaken hospital. She's looking for her beloved Esther, who brought her up as a child. She last heard from Esther five months earlier when she was admitted to Eden State. Now Meyer is on a mission to find out what happened to her.

Within days things start to go wrong. Meyer is assisting in a leg amputation when she discovers they are cutting the wrong leg. Days later, an eclamptic patient dies from magnesium toxicity. A child is raped on the grounds, a nurse brutally assaulted and more patients die without any reason. Who is behind these acts? Whispers in the corridors speak of tokoloshe. Meyer begins to wonder what's going on, and jots down her thoughts on a piece of paper. Now the trouble targets Meyer. A thrilling book, beautifully written by someone who knows hospital life intimately Auer is a doctor who has worked in state hospitals. Reading this is like watching ER in words: exciting, dangerous and riveting. Gabriella Bekes