HOUSE CALL

by Darden North, MD

Jackson Physician Skillfully Pens Novel of Rage, Murder and Medicine

JACKSON, Miss.— No one in Mississippi would have ever made the connection between the two deaths: a young female nurse found diced up, floating in her antique bathtub, and a distinguished older physician who drowns after tumbling from his deer stand.

However, Jackson physician Darden North masterfully weaves a fabric of secret self-indulgences, reverse discrimination, diverse sexual interests and murder and drapes it across his fictional southern community in House Call, his first novel.

“True to the custom of southern discretion, the rages of these diverse orientations are private, generally tasteful, but nevertheless a demonstration of the uninhibited,” remarked North.

Lurking on the periphery, indirectly touching nearly every colorful character in this medical thriller is a demonic killer whose victims share the wounds of a twisted psyche. To parallel the bumbling, but eventually successful police investigation of the nurse’s slaughter, is the spreading poison of corporate financial greed that defiles the very core of the medical community.

House Call, a 360-page page-turner, is scheduled for release in October 2005 and is being self-published by North through his Ponder House Press.

North, an OB-Gyn with Jackson Healthcare for Women, said the storyline is pure fiction but it’s a story he’s had in his head for some time.

“I’ve talked about writing a novel for years before I actually started and then discussed the possibility for several more years even as I began,” he said. “ Each time my diligence faltered, I gave the manuscript to another person to read. I had a lot of readers because I did a lot of faltering. They are the true heroes of this work.”

House Call will be available at bookstores across the South.

Released in October, 2005
6” x 9.25”, 360 pages
ISBN # 0-9771126-0-8
Price $24.95

Darden North was initiated into Alpha Upsilon Chapter of Kappa Alpha Order at Ole Miss in 1975 and practices Obstetrics and Gynecology in Jackson, MS. He is married to the former Sally Fortenberry (also an Ole Miss graduate), and they have two children, William and Anderson.

Click to view Darden North's website