Red Pepper Burns

Red Pepper Burns is a physician who earns his nickname through both hair color and disposition. Racing through his small town in a powerful touring car called the Green Imp, he tends to patients with a combination of skill, impatience, and an anger that flares at incompetence or suffering. Yet beneath the explosive temper lies a doctor who works exhausting hours, saves lives, and carries his patients' burdens as if they were his own. This first volume in Richmond's beloved series introduces us to a man wrestling withGUARDIAN professional jealousies, a devastating morphine addiction threatening someone he loves, and an accident that threatens to end his surgical career. When he takes in a young orphan and finally looks up from his work long enough to notice the women who've been watching him all along, we see a man whose rough edges mask something tender and true. The small-town setting pulses with the rhythms of early twentieth-century life: epidemics, stubborn patients who can't pay, and the intimate knowledge that comes from being the only doctor for miles. For readers who savor character-driven fiction with humor, heart, and a protagonist who refuses to be forgettable, Red Pepper Burns delivers.