Natural Causes

By: Michael Palmer

Narrated by: Natasha Richardson

“Reinvents the medical thriller.”—Library Journal

Dr. Sarah Baldwin races to a Boston hospital with a young woman whose normal labor has suddenly become a matter of life and death. As she struggles to save both mother and baby, she doesn't know that two other women have already died under horrifying identical circumstances. And so begins Sarah's own nightmare, as she learns that the prenatal herbal vitamins she prescribed are the only thing these women have in common.

Soon Sarah is fighting to save her career, her reputation—her life. For she's certain there must be some unknown factor linking these women, and as she gets closer to the truth, it becomes clear that someone will do anything—even murder—to keep a devastating secret.©1994 Michael Palmer; (P)1994 Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, A Division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Reinvents the medical thriller.”—Library Journal

The soundtrack for this book is terrible, possibly recorded quite some time ago. It’s impossible to hear.

The major concern is the quality of the audio, it is crackling and unclear, impossible to hear particularly in the car. I can’t rate the story as I could not quite hear what happened :)

Bad a bridgement, worse recording

Author: Great
Story: Good
Abridgement: Confusing
Recording: Sounded like it was read over a string and tin can telephone
Conclusion: Save your money, pick something else!

Michael Palmer does great work, his books are riveting and Audible has a number of them, but Natural Causes has been poorly abrisged and I got lost half-way through. This confusion was augmented by the incredibly poor recording, it sounded like they transferred it from a scratchy vinyl record, not good. I understood format 2 was AM quality, but it was worse than that. Personally I'd like my money back on this one.

Poor recording

A good story is marred by low-quality audio. It sounds as if it were recorded under water. The Natasha Richardson who narrates is not the well known British actress with a crisp clear English accent, but a woman who sounds as if she would be more at home working in a Boston fish market.

Also, you should be aware that this audiobook is a mere three hours long, not much time to get to know the main characters.

Poor Sound

The quality of the recording is poor. It hard to understand the words when the music is playing on the background.
Not worth the purchase.

Horrible Recording

This recording was horrible. It was muffled and at times background music completely blocked out the narrator. Don't bother.