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Scarecrow: A Mystery (Jo Banks Mysteries) Kindle Edition

4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 12 ratings

Briefly departing from her Doctor Fenimore stories, Robin Hathaway brings readers Dr. Jo Banks, a young female doctor practicing in Manhattan. When a little patient dies, Banks blames herself. Unable to face her life, she runs---leaving her lover, driving away from New York and through New Jersey without a destination on the highway or in her life. She stops at a motel, and that evening is called upon to treat a woman taken suddenly ill.

The episode leads the motel owner to present Jo with a deal. Neither he nor the other motel owners can afford to keep a doctor on hand, but it is sometimes difficult to get one to come out from the nearest city. What they need is a cooperative house doctor---someone who can quickly get to any of the nearby motels. How about it? Jo takes the deal---without knowing that it will involve her in a series of gruesome murders of itinerant farm workers.

Full of the wit, charm, and lively settings that have made Hathaway's Doctor Fenimore series so popular,
Scarecrow is sure to please.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In an intriguing departure from her Doctor Fenimore novels (The Doctor Digs a Grave, etc.), Hathaway launches a new series with an unusual heroine. Reeling from the death of a young patient, Dr. Jo Banks abandons her job in Manhattan and hits the road. She ends up at a New Jersey motel, where she treats a woman who becomes suddenly ill. Impressed, the motel owner offers Jo a deal. None of the motel operators in the area can afford to keep a doctor on staff full-time; she can live and keep an office at his motel in return for serving their needs. At first reluctant, Jo soon warms to the area and finds a number of puzzles to pique her interest. Who was the dead man found disguised as a scarecrow in a local farmer's field? And what is the story behind an odd girl who wants to run away to the big city? Tooling about on a motorcycle, Jo encounters more strange events and even murder, and her penchant for nosiness leads her into danger that could prove life-threatening. As the young physician integrates herself into the community, Hathaway convincingly portrays small-town and rural New Jersey life in an appealing, sometimes poignant story with low-key suspense and winning characters. FYI: The Doctor Digs a Grave won an Agatha Award for Best First Novel.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In a break from her popular Dr. Fenimore series, Hathaway introduces a compelling new physician-sleuth, twentysomething Jo Banks, who is wracked with guilt when a young patient dies. Impulsively fleeing Manhattan, she meanders into the small southern Jersey town of Bayside. Her first night at the decidedly unglamorous Oakview Motor Lodge initiates a series of implausible but highly entertaining adventures. First, Jo is called on to treat a violently ill woman in the next room. The woman and her husband skip out on their hotel bill, only to turn up later as houseguests of Jo's new friend, Becca, and her aunt. Meanwhile, a farmer finds that a scarecrow is actually a dead body in disguise. Deciding to stay in Bayside as "house" doctor for several small area hotels, Jo soon finds links between the shady couple and the scarecrow murder. As she befriends the locals, especially good-looking Tom Canby, Jo finds herself falling for the town and its inhabitants. An affectionate portrayal of small-town life. Jenny McLarin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B007NJOPPC
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Minotaur Books (April 1, 2003)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 1, 2003
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2.5 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 253 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 12 ratings

About the author

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Robin Hathaway
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BIO: Robin Hathaway

Robin Hathaway began writing at fifty and collected rejection slips until she was sixty, when her novel THE DOCTOR DIGS A GRAVE won the St. Martin’s Malice Domestic prize, and later an Agatha Award. She now has two series both featuring doctor sleuths. Dr. Andrew Fenimore is a Philadelphia cardiologist who practices solo and still makes house calls. Jo Banks is a young woman doctor who provides healthcare to motel residents and makes her motel calls on a motorcycle. SLEIGHT OF HAND, her most recent in this series, won the 2009 David Award. Robin is not a doctor, but her husband is a cardiologist and she uses him shamelessly as her #1 medical resource. Right now Robin is taking a break from her two series to work on a spy novel set at Cape May during WWII. www.RobinHathaway.com

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
12 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2021
    I read a lot of mysteries...most I can figure out in the first chapter or so...many follow a set pattern...this one, although having the typical “ last minute save of the heroine “ was just plain well written and a tad unique...hope for more like it.
  • Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2003
       Robin Hathaway is the author of three Doctor Andrew Fenimore novels: The Doctor Digs a Grave (1999), which won her an Agatha Award for Best First Novel); The Doctor Makes a Dollhouse Call (2001); and The Doctor and the Dead Man's Chest (2001).
       Dr. Fenimore, a thirtysomething bachelor, is an old-fashioned Philadelphia physician who still makes house calls and, often accompanied by Nurse Doyle, his assistant sleuth, dabbles in criminal investigation.
       With Scarecrow, Hathaway launches a new murder mystery series featuring Dr. Jo Banks, a female version of Doctor Fenimore. An almost-thirty-year-old woman, Jo is running away from the flotsam and jetsam of a botched career and a tired love affair. She abandons her practice in New York City when she misdiagnoses Sophie Miller, a young girl who dies of spinal meningitis.
       Numbed and anesthesized, Jo flees to Bayfield, a small town in the boondocks of southern New Jersey, about fifty miles from Philadelphia and in near the marshlands of the Cohansey River.
       Jo checks in at the Oakview Motor Lodge, a two-star motel owned and operated by Paul and Maggie Nelson. She soon meets a teenage girl named Becca Borovy; Ema, Becca's eccentric aunt; and (the plot thickens) a tall, dark, and handsome "Robin Hood" named Tom Canby.
       You know you're in the boonies when the nearest Wal-Mart is no closer than twenty miles away. South Jersey abounds in names such as Polecat Corner, Snakeskin Road, Crab's Neck Road, Possum Hollow Road, the Blue Arrow Diner, and the Lenape Trailer Park.
       Bayfield's one claim to fame is a nuclear power plant. Black against the sky, its cooling tower is a giant chimney spewing clouds of steam. Flashing lights circle its gaping mouth, warning airplanes to keep away.
       Immediately on her arrival in Bayfield, Jo treats a woman who becomes suddenly ill, and is offered a deal to become a "motel doctor," a person on call to serve the medical needs of various motels in the area.
       Having fallen in love with small-town life and the people of Bayfield, Jo accepts the offer. Breathing a sigh of relief to have escaped the urban rat race. Zooming around Bayfield on her newly purchased motorcyle, Jo is happy to have found a place so peaceful and serene, far from the violence of big-city life.
       But when a dead man is found disguised as a scarecrow in found in a local farmer's field, Jo discovers a serpent in the pastoral Eden. And, one can see it coming, she places her own life in jeopardy by playing the dubious role of "lone woman who courageously, but foolhardily, investigates a dark and deserted house." Like the scarecrow in her favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz, Jo desperately needs a brain.
       Scarecrow is an easy and enjoyable read. The chapters are short and the plot moves quickly. The dialogue is snappy, and the heroine, Dr. Jo Banks, is an engaging and likeable character. Above all, the author writes with a delectable sense of humor that will cause you to smile, chuckle, and laugh out loud.

    A charming work of escapist fiction.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2015
    Good summer read.
  • Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2016
    In most cases the introduction to a book, will cover either the first chapter or the first 10 pages. In that book it seems to cover a quarter of the all book. I mean nothing is really happening. As you may understand, my review is targeting people that love action. I thought this book was from the medical genre, but it seems that I was mistaken, at least for the 30% that I was able to go through. Seems more like maybe Drama mixed with mystery and crime, but in very slow pace. Any way I was reading way beyond the regular 10% I normally give for a book to get my reading attention. Bottom line not my type of book. I like action with fast pace.
  • Amazon Customer
    Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2003
    When Dr. Jo Banks, a family practitioner with an office in a ritzy medical building, loses a patient due to a misdiagnosis, she can't handle the guilt. The fact that her patient was a child makes the pain all the more excruciating for Jo. She heads out of New York with no destination in mind, winding up in a dinky motel where she ends up treating one of the guests. The owner of the Oakview Motor Lodge, Paul Nelson, is so grateful that he asks her to serve as the region's on call motel doctor.
    It doesn't her take to long to realize that she no longer wants to practice anymore in New York. She returns to break up with her boyfriend and sublet her apartment before going back to the Oakview Motor Lodge where she's given her own room and a cabin to make into a private office. She likes her work as a hotel doctor and is slowly building up her practice, making a place for herself in the community. When she is kidnapped, everyone from miles around gets involved in the search to find her.
    The heroine is a truly fine doctor because she sees behind the business of medicine to its basic calling and the patients sense this and accept her. SCARECROW is a smooth and bloodless amateur sleuth tale where the doctor comes to the attention of some pretty shady people due to a believable set of circumstances. Robin Hathaway has created a winning series that will appeal to anyone who likes the author's delightful Doctor Fenimore cozies.
    Harriet Klausner
    2 people found this helpful
    Report

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