Claire Rayner 
Fifth Member 4th Sept
1997 Fourth Attempt pbk 4th
Sept 1997 About the Author Bibliography Claire Rayner
Fifth Member 4th Sept
1997
Fourth Attempt pbk 4th
Sept 1997
About the Author
Bibliography
Fifth Member
When a Conservative MP is found strangled with his throat cut,
and mutilated in a particularly nasty way, Superintendent Gus Hathaway suddenly finds
himself with a highly sensitive ease on his hands. What is the significance of this
destructive act?
He needs to find the answers fast for within days a Labour MP
suffers the same fate.
Dr George Barnabas, Head of Pathology at the Old East
Hospital, is now living with Gus and finds herself unable to avoid becoming involved in
the investigations. She realises that the murders have the same pattern as those of Jack
the Ripper, and if she's right, the killer will strike five times. Time is running out for
Gus to catch the perpetrator...
George decides to take matters into her own hands but what she
discovers makes it more difficult to find the elusive connection between the killer and
the ever-increasing list of victims.
Immensely gripping, Fifth Member is the fifth thriller to
feature George Barnabas and is every bit as compulsive as those chronicling her previous
exploits.
Fourth
Attempt
Three deaths. Three suicides. All of them staff of London's
Royal Eastern Hospital. All of them verified by Dr George Barnabas. No wonder the
gossipmongers at the Old East are having a field day.
Then there is nearly a fourth death - this time one of
George's own lab staff. But this looks more like attempted murder and when George herself
comes under suspicion she decides to do some serious sleuthing.
When she and Gus Hathaway, newly promoted to superintendent,
begin to investigate they find the situation far more complex than first appeared.
Uncovering a whirlwind of intrigue, George and Gus face their most devious situation yet -
where no one is above suspicion.
Praise for the Dr George Barnabas
mysteries:
"The new man in pathology is a woman - Dr
George Barnabas, scalpel-minded heroine of Claire Rayner's chilling medical murder
mystery" Cosmopolitan
"That George Barnabas is a woman is just the
first twist in this taut and fraught investigation" Sunday Express
"Each is as compulsively heartstopping as
the last" Yorkshire Post
About The Author
Claire Raynor is Britain's best-known advice
and medical expert. She originally trained as a nurse at the Royal Northern Hospital,
London and went on to study midwifery at Guy's hospital as well as working at the Royal
Free Hospital and at the Whittington Hospital where she was sister in the Paediatric
Department.
She married in 1957 and turned to writing in 1960 when the birth of her first child ended
her nursing career. She now has three children, Amanda, Adam and Jay. In 1981 she was
admitted to the Freedom of the City of London.
Claire is the author of over ninety books, including a broad range of medical subjects
from sex education for children and adults through to home nursing, family health and baby
and child care, as well as a great deal of very successful fiction.
A number of these title, have been published in the U.S.A., Japan, Scandinavia, France,
Germany, Italy and Spain amongst others.
Claire has written a series of novels under the name Sheila Brandon, plus two
"Gothic" novels and 'a detective story. She has completed a twelve-volume family
saga with a background both medical and theatrical, beginning in the year 1800 under the
series title Performers and the six-volume Poppy Chronicles series. Michael Joseph have
published four contemporary novels and two historical novels.
Claire has contributed articles to most UK national newspapers at one time or another, and
also many leading magazines.
She was Ruth Martin of Woman's Own for nine years, but in 1975 her own
by-line replaced the house name under which she continued as the magazine's medical
correspondent for a total of twenty one years. In 1988 she left Women's Own
to join Woman magazine, where she remained until 1992.
Today, Claire is constantly in demand to speak at professional symposia, women's
organisations, medical conferences and child care organisations. She also sits on a number
of medical and welfare boards and committees.
In 1996 New Year's Honours list Claire was awarded an OBE, the citation reading "For
services to women's issues and to health issues". She currently lives in North London