Take a photo of a barcode or cover
tdavies1977 's review for:
The Prison Doctor
by Amanda Brown
I was really excited to read this book; I’m weirdly fascinated by crime; what makes people behave the way they do, and make the decisions they make, so to read about someone on the inside (literally!) I thought would be incredibly interesting. Hmmmm.
Firstly, it’s not written by the doctor even though it’s her name on the cover. It’s ghost-written by a journalist, and you can tell. I kind of liked how it read like fiction, because this made it an easy read, however the language and style used made it difficult to remember that this was actually true-life.
The doctor’s behaviour irritated me on many occasions - she was told not to share personal information, yet she told a prisoner that she was a mother. She hugged more than one inmate (seriously?!) She broke the rules and gave an inmate wet wipes and another a packet of biscuits - ummm screams of favouritism there! Finally, she was warned not to walk alone through the communal areas of Wormwood Scrubs, as this could be very dangerous (woman in a men’s prison, need I say more?) yet she disregarded the warning because she ‘never once felt unsafe’! Honestly, I just wanted to shake her!
I also felt she liked to blow her own trumpet. A lot. I’m sure she was/is excellent at her job, and was/is well-liked and respected, but did we need to be told that so often? She practically turned hardened criminals into pussycats for Christ’s sake! And the scenario where armed police ‘allowed’ her to ‘talk down’ (successfully might I add) a patient who had a knife to his throat, on her own, without back up - really?!!!
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the book from start to end, and it really picked up the pace in Part 3, but I think that was more to do with the topic rather than the writing.
I will still read the second book (not sure about the third yet) but I’m hoping for a more humble, stick-to-the-facts offering next time!
Firstly, it’s not written by the doctor even though it’s her name on the cover. It’s ghost-written by a journalist, and you can tell. I kind of liked how it read like fiction, because this made it an easy read, however the language and style used made it difficult to remember that this was actually true-life.
The doctor’s behaviour irritated me on many occasions - she was told not to share personal information, yet she told a prisoner that she was a mother. She hugged more than one inmate (seriously?!) She broke the rules and gave an inmate wet wipes and another a packet of biscuits - ummm screams of favouritism there! Finally, she was warned not to walk alone through the communal areas of Wormwood Scrubs, as this could be very dangerous (woman in a men’s prison, need I say more?) yet she disregarded the warning because she ‘never once felt unsafe’! Honestly, I just wanted to shake her!
I also felt she liked to blow her own trumpet. A lot. I’m sure she was/is excellent at her job, and was/is well-liked and respected, but did we need to be told that so often? She practically turned hardened criminals into pussycats for Christ’s sake! And the scenario where armed police ‘allowed’ her to ‘talk down’ (successfully might I add) a patient who had a knife to his throat, on her own, without back up - really?!!!
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the book from start to end, and it really picked up the pace in Part 3, but I think that was more to do with the topic rather than the writing.
I will still read the second book (not sure about the third yet) but I’m hoping for a more humble, stick-to-the-facts offering next time!