3 out of 4 stars
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McDowell by William H. Coles is a fictional biography that revolves around Hiram McDowell and his road to redemption. The story is divided into two parts. The first part details Hiram's life as a surgeon who founded and ran a medical foundation in Nepal. He was also the chair of the International College of Surgeons, and he was nominated by the president to be the United States Secretary of Health. In this part of Hiram's story, the author paints him as a manipulative, womanizing, and uncaring man. The second part of the story follows Hiram and the people that played roles in bringing out a better version of himself.
The book is set in different states in the US and Nepal. The first thing I liked about McDowell was its organization. The author does well to start each chapter with the name of the person and location the chapter is about and set respectively. He also dishes out character's thoughts using italicized writing. This helped me to understand and flow with the story easily. Coles also deploys a very descriptive and fast-paced writing in this book. It made me feel like I was watching the story as a movie, and could hardly put the book down once I began reading.
Furthermore, the author expertly touches several controversial issues like adultery, religion, euthanasia, misogyny, guns, and incest. This made the book more engaging for me and raised a lot of thought-provoking questions. The character development in McDowell is excellent. I really liked how Hiram grew throughout the book and how realistic his growth was. I started out hating Hiram, then I pitied him, and by the end of the book I really liked him. Coles also made sure he utilized every character to the maximum as all the characters had important roles to play in Hiram's growth.
There wasn't much to dislike about this book. It was professionally edited. There were a few errors but none that made my reading difficult. However, it was difficult to understand dialogues in certain parts of the book as I couldn't figure out who was speaking. I also had some trouble following up with the timeline in the book. At the beginning of the book, the author wrote that Hiram's second wife died in 1999 and he married his third wife two years later. However, he went on to talk about Hiram's married life with his third wife in 1999. Instances like this pop up several other times in the book.
Overall, I enjoyed reading McDowell. It was a suspenseful and engaging book. I experienced a wide range of emotions while reading through the story. The book also showed how someone's actions can affect other people. There were also a few moral lessons I learned from McDowell, especially about treating people with respect. I would recommend this book to people who love suspenseful and character-driven crime stories. I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. My difficulty to keep up with the timeline and dialogues take out one star for me.
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McDowell
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