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    Rubbernecker
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    Rubbernecker
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    Rubbernecker
    Audiobook8 hours

    Rubbernecker

    Written by Belinda Bauer

    Narrated by Andrew Wincott

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    “The dead can’t speak to us,” Professor Madoc had said. But that was a lie. The body Patrick Fort is examining in anatomy class is trying to tell him all kinds of things. But no one hears what he does, and no one understand when he tries to tell them. Life is already strange enough for Patrick—being a medical student with Asperger’s Syndrome doesn't come without its challenges. And that’s before he is faced with solving a possible murder, especially when no one believes a crime has even taken place. Now he must stay out of danger long enough to unravel the mystery. But as Patrick learns one truth from a dead man, he discovers there have been many other lies closer to home.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateAug 9, 2016
    ISBN9781520017754
    Author

    Belinda Bauer

    Belinda Bauer grew up in England and South Africa. She has worked as a journalist and screenwriter, and her script The Locker Room earned her the Carl Foreman/Bafta Award for Young British Screenwriters, an award that was presented to her by Sidney Poitier. She was a runner-up in the Rhys Davies Short Story Competition for “Mysterious Ways,” about a girl stranded on a desert island with 30,000 Bibles. Belinda now lives in Wales. Her latest novel, Snap, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. 

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    Reviews for Rubbernecker

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    • 5/5
      Patrick Fort tells most of this story. He has Asperger's which makes it difficult for him to communicate because he lacks an understanding of visual clues or idioms. Since his father's death when he was around 8 and a school social worker told him that his father went through a door, Patrick has been trying to understand death and find out where his father went. After years of experiments with roadkill and the growing disgust of his alcoholic mother, Patrick tries and tries to understand. He gets a chance to move to Cardiff and take part in a class for new medical students which will have them working on dissecting cadavers for 22 weeks. He is their "disability" student. The students' first task is to determine the cause of death. Nothing is obviously wrong with the man they are dissecting. When Patrick discovers a peanut in the airway of a man who had been fed through a tube, he is initially just curious. He sneaks into the office where the records on the cadavers are kept and learns that the cause of death is listed as heart failure. He doesn't believe it and begins to believe that his cadaver was murdered. He also learns his cadaver's name - Sam.Meanwhile, a second story thread follows patients who are in long-time comas or vegetative states and follows a man named Sam who is beginning to come out of his coma. Sam had been in a car accident and as he comes to consciousness he wonders who the strange woman is who visits him and where his wife and daughter are. He also sees a young doctor end the life of the coma patient who shares his room. Unable to move or speak and being cared for by a nurse who is more interested in making a conquest of the husband of another patient, Sam is helpless to do anything about what he saw. As Patrick investigates, he comes closer and closer to solving the mystery of Sam's cause of death and also uncovers secrets in his own family. The story was unique because of the perspective of Patrick who sees facts but has trouble figuring out the reasons for actions.I enjoyed the story and liked how the mystery gradually unfolded.
    • 5/5
      This was an unusual book, told from the perspective of a young man with Asperger's syndrome. Most of the story is more about a young man coming to terms with his existence than about a mystery as such. One big difference is even though Patrick is in medical school he does not intend to become a doctor. He's not interested in what makes people live; he's interested in what makes them die. Along with his mental condition, this morbid interest makes him an unorthodox but brilliant student. The book is intriguing and at times even impressive and it is certainly different.
    • 4/5
      An excellent idea - very well delivered!
    • 5/5
      Patrick Fort has Aspergers Syndrome so life is a challenge. When he has the chance od being a medical student it is right up his street as it's not the living that interests him but the dead. Patrick new challenge is a possible murder.I really didn't think I was going to like this book but I was quite surprised, in fact I can say I loved it. The story is quite different to some thrillers out there. It isn't a case of Miss Scarlet, in the library with the rope. This book is very unique and different. The story had a good steady pace and I was really urging Patrick on. At times I really wanted to hug him, but I doubt he would have let me. There is also plenty of gore and is quite graphic at times so if you are squeamish be warned.Minor Spoiler:What I didn't like was the ending. I didn't think there was any need for that extra part with his mother. The story had ended how I would have expected and there was plenty of the story to be satisfactory. I also thought that I needed to find out what happened with Tracy and Mrs Deal. Although I can guess I would have preferred an ending.I would highly recommend this book as it is something different and a cracking thriller.
    • 4/5
      "Williams jerked a thumb at the cell door. 'Kid's got a severed head in his frig but he wants a bloody feather duster to do a bit of housework."Meet Patrick. He is a young man with Aspergers, he does not like to be touched, is very matter of fact, does not recognize most social clues, and has a vey matter of fact way of looking at the world. His mother wishes he were normal, but Patrick holds no hard feelings. So how does he become embroiled in a story and death that is not what it appears?A unique story and plot, at times humorous, at times sad. It was easy to fall in love with the character that is Patrick, but because I know how hard it would be to live with someone like this I also understand the mom's frustration as well. All in all I found this a very well done story, with a credible plot that kept me reading to the end. If you want to find out why Patrick had a severed head in his fridge, You will just have to read the book yourself.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book , i thought it was a bit wierd to start with , but then it was excellent , about an autistic young man called Patrick who is studying anatomy so that he can find out the ,meaning of what happens when you die ., he cannot relate to people and doesnt have any friends , but what happens to him along the way and what he discovers and how it changes his life , bizzare but enthralling .
    • 5/5
      Fantastic read. Great story and plot. Some nice twists too. Funny, dark dialogue that made you love the characters, especially Patrick.
    • 5/5
      Basically a story about two men,one who shortly after the book begins,becomes the fatal victim of a car crash. The other is Patrick Fort who has Aspergers Syndrome and who is training in anatomy class dissecting bodies. As the two come together,Patrick learns not only that all is not as it seems with the body before him,but also much that was hidden about his own life.This is one of those books that I admire because the author has tried and indeed succeeded to write something quite new and unique.
    • 4/5
      Patrick Fort suffers from Aspergers syndrome and he finds it difficult to communicate and interact with others. Patrick is a medical student and during the examination of a "body" he questions the cause of death and believes a foul act has been committed. This is a very clever book and the writing and humour (because it must be said that AS can be the cause of some very funny occurrences) are what set this crime story apart from so many others....A coma patient is locked in a world of silence and Patrick must discover and solve the mystery of his studies, and the eventual sudden death of the coma patient. To say much more would spoil the surprises that lie within this most unusual and excellent portrayal of AS under the guise of a first class crime story.
    • 5/5
      This is an unconventional crime thriller with little Police involvement even though a murder has been committed.Belinda Bauer has the skill and competence to assign the role of "detective" to a young man hindered in part by his Asperger syndrome but these very traits are used very positively to help find the truth.Does for the medical profession where an earlier book did for the village bobby.It is a story about a quest to understand death and results in the discovery of truth through self awareness and relationship changes.I found this a moving story; scary at times, but always character driven and ultimately true to reality. The author is at the peak of her powers as a storyteller, whole sections seem to sing and the result is a novel that reaches the parts other books cannot or fail to attempt to reach.Miracles and murders? Is it a point of view or just one's own biased perspective? In are busy lives we fail to see and comprehend in this author's works we explore our own prejudices and through her skill we see more clearly. I am grateful for the creation of Patrick who takes us on that journey and offers us an alternative way of thinking.This will be one of the stand out books of 2013; I'm glad to have read it and to be able to recommend it without any reservation
    • 4/5
      Rubbernecker begins with the story of a man driving through bad Welsh weather to pick his daughter up after her train home was canceled. A moment's inattention sends his car through the guardrails and down a steep hillside. Then there's Patrick, who is autistic. His mother is not coping well with the challenge of raising him in an isolated house in the countryside, but his father is caring and patient, taking Patrick with him to the betting shop and for long hikes. When his father dies, Patrick can't understand the metaphors used to explain his father's absence to him, and his determination to find out what happened to his father leads to him studying anatomy in university. Living in a run-down house with two flatmates, as well as interacting with his fellow students in the dissection class are stretching him to interact with others in a way he's never tried before. But what really fascinates Patrick is the challenge of determining the cause of death of the corpse they've been given to dissect. It takes over from his obsession with his father's death and becomes especially strong when he begins to believe that the cause of death on the death certificate is not the actual cause of death. This is the kind of crime novel where, after a few chapters, it's impossible to put it down. Bauer has done a fantastic job weaving the stories of the two main characters into something riveting. And the way in which she tells Patrick's story through his eyes is very well done. He's at a disadvantage in some ways; being unable to read facial expressions or the way he takes comments literally, for example, but he's also able to exert a dogged determination to find answers, well beyond what anyone else would be willing to do. Bauer does a credible job both describing Patrick's reactions to people and events and in describing the reactions of people to Patrick. This is also quite a creepy and atmospheric book, as much of it is set in a hospital ward full of coma patients.
    • 5/5
      I received a copy of this book through Goodreads' First Reads in exchange for an honest review.This is a book you cannot put down. I was hooked from page one.The book follows multiple interconnected characters as they navigate through their lives, solving mysteries and learning how to live along the way. It is absolutely magnificent!One of the things I really enjoyed about the book is the flesh and blood characters, who are told in a realistic way that doesn't try to his their flaws (the resentful alcoholic mother, the man emerging from a coma to a new world, the unsatisfied detective sergeant). One of the most interesting characters, Patrick, has Asperger's Syndrome and the narration gives an in-depth portrayal of his unique mindset. I really enjoyed the presentation of Patrick as a character from his own point of view as well as the views of other characters such as his mother. The complex interaction of Patrick's thinking and the neurological thinking of those around him gives great insight into some of the social and linguistic issues that individuals on the autism spectrum have to face in their interactions with neurological people. This is a great portrayal of one individual with Asperger's.This book is amazing and I cannot recommend it enough. High suspenseful with multiple plots and mysteries, this book is a masterpiece.
    • 4/5
      An offbeat crime novel with an unusual "investigator" --Patrick Fort, a medical student with Asperger's Syndrome. Happy to see that I can get Bauer's other books from the library.Library book.
    • 4/5
      AUTHOR: BAUER, BelindaTITLE: RubberneckerDATE READ: 12/10/15RATING: 4.5/B+GENRE/PUB DATE/PUBLISHER/# OF PGS Crime Fiction/ 2013 / Black Swan / 415 pgs SERIES/STAND-ALONE: SA CHARACTERS AUTHOR: Patrick Fort, student of anatomy has Asperger's TIME/PLACE Present UKFIRST LINES Dying is not as easy as it looks in the movies. COMMENTS: Enjoyed this one and will look for more by this author. Told through several points of view -- Patrick , has Asperger's and is on a disability quota studying anatomy, there is also the hospital ward w/ coma patients and we have viewpoints from medical staff and also from some of the coma patients. Patrick is dissecting a cadaver w/ other medical students and is determined to find the cause of death. He is frustrated when he feels all possible options have been ruled out and he breaks into the file drawer to see what has been listed as COD. He feels this is not right and eventually puts together some facts that indicate murder.
    • 4/5
      This was an interesting read. Even if this story is a fiction, it involves issues that go very close. Patrick is autistic. He does not like to communicate with other people. His childhood was marked by the unexplained accidental death of his father. This aroused in him the desire to learn all about the death . I like Patrick's tenacity. He can not bring calm to go to the bottom of things. He is only satisfied if there are no open questions.A second aspect of this book are the feelings of coma patients. This goes under the skin, as we probably all thought about us, as it could be, if we ourselves would be amongst the coma, catch all and can not contact us. I think it's important that we make thoughts about it and hold this in a living will, lest our families have to worry about.
    • 4/5
      This is the story of Patrick he is on the Autistic spectrum he lives in Wales, he grows up with his alcoholic Mother after his Fathers death when Patrick was young this really affected him. He enrols in University and studies Mortuary science. He with some of his fellow Pupils dissect a dead mans body known as No.19 Patrick is a bit weird lacks social skills but he believes that No. 19 was murdered as he finds a peanut in his throat. Patrick does his own investigation work, he finds out No.19 real name was Sam Galen he accidently teams up with his daughter Lexi to solve the case. It turns out it was Doctor Spicer from the hospital/mortuary that was killing patients. Good enjoyable book this.
    • 5/5
      ‘Rubberneckers. Desperate for a glimpse of death.’This is a cracking crime novel from Belinda Bauer. Patrick is a complex and yet rather endearing character who has Asperger’s syndrome. He has gone to University to study anatomy in order to try and solve his quest with regard to the death of his father when Patrick was a young boy. His father’s death left a hole in his life. He doesn’t get on well with his mother and she in turn struggles to deal with him.The novel is also partly set in a neurological ward and we have as one of the narrators one of the people in a coma; he is struggling to muster up any communication that can be understood by the people watching him, those wanting him to return to life; this gives us a unique and fascinating viewpoint on events, and I felt this was a very clever device to use within the story. Another viewpoint is the selfish lazy nurse who was out for herself, this introduced another angle to events in the ward.Patrick becomes intrigued about the cause of death of the body his group is working on dissecting in his anatomy class. Unlike most of the other students who are studying medicine and saving lives, Patrick has a specific quest which makes him singularly interested in anatomy as a means to answering the question which has dominated his thoughts since his father left his life. ‘He didn’t care what made people work. He was only interested in what happened whey they stopped…’Patrick’s curiosity and determination is what drives the story forward. He slowly begins to find a new interest in his life, a new goal to solve the fresh mystery he has uncovered. He also developes a little in his interactions with people, such as with compassionate fellow student Meg, despite the boundaries and limitations of behaviour and understanding of others that his condition dictates.There are so many wonderfully satisfying episodes in the plot which I wish I could write about but I can’t mention them here because they need to be discovered and savoured as you read.The bringing together of the story arc of the whole novel from beginning to end was very cleverly done and something which I thought about at the end as all the revelations were complete. I loved the way the narrative is structured. Each character feels believable and compelling, and each of their individual parts of the story are so cleverly brought to a conclusion which integrates into the book as a whole.There is some deliciously dark humour; at times I was laughing an awful lot and wondering whether I should really be laughing at these things, but the way Belinda Bauer writes these events is so clever, combining the gruesome with the ridiculous and mundane to superb effect.There is genuine terror, suspense and intrigue throughout and I couldn’t read this book fast enough.A brilliant read, a cracking and inventive mystery, cleverly written and darkly funny, and a standout book of the year so far.
    • 5/5
      Since reading Badlands I’d been looking forward to another Bauer novel and I most certainly wasn’t disappointed. This time her protagonist is somewhat older than in Badlands. Patrick Fort struggles with Asberger’s as he sets out to learn anatomy. But his struggles are only just beginning as he finds out that the body he was working on didn’t die of natural causes. But no one believes him. What can he do to convince people he is right?
      This is interspersed with scenes from the ‘coma’ ward in a local hospital where a man trapped inside his body sees a murder taking place and does everything he can to let someone know what’s has happened. But are his efforts going to be enough? Or will he himself turn out to be one of the victims?
      The plot of Rubbernecker has an unusual premise but in the skilled hands of Bauer she has turned it into an outstanding book.
    • 5/5
      'The dead can't speak to us,' Professor Madoc had said.
      But that was a lie.

      Sometimes, only an outsider can get to the truth.

      Patrick has been on the outside all his life. Thoughtful, but different, infuriating even to his own mother, his life changes when he follows an obsession with death to study anatomy at university.

      When he uncovers a crime that everybody else was too close to see, he proves finally that he has been right all along: nothing is exactly as it seems.

      And that there have been many more lies closer to home...


      Probably my book of the year...so far...


      Patrick suffers from Asperger's Syndrome and after losing his father at an early age is obsessed with finding out the meaning of death, so he joins a anatomy course in at Cardiff University hospital.

      His group of students have their own corpse (number 19) and dissect him over a number of weeks with the outcome being they establish the cause of death.

      Meanwhile in the same hospital Sam is in the coma ward trapped in his own body somewhere between death and recovery. He is unable to 'emerge' but he can see and hear what is going on around him. He is looked after by a team of nurse who range from the compassionate to the contemptible. Then he observes something he shouldn't….

      I enjoyed Bauer's previous Blacklands (loose) trilogy but Rubbernecker is something else and probably my book of the year...so far...
      Plot is very clever, characters are fantastic (Patrick is so endearing, you just want to make things right for him) and I love Bauer’s economical writing, and there is not one word that doesn’t need to be there.

      The author is a master at intertwining the macabre with laugh out loud moments of dark humour (I laughed a lot)

      The dreadful coma nurse Tracy is a wonderfully written character:

      “The coma ward was boring yet difficult. Like golf.”

      “Sweet little thing says she still wants to marry him. Breaks your heart: She sighed and sounded sincere, so Tracy nodded in a way she hoped denoted that she, too, was a little bit heartbroken — even though she thought that if her (hypothetical) boyfriend were in a coma for more than a few weeks, she’d probably just cut her losses and move on, not stick around to watch him shit in his pants for the next fifty years.”

      Absolutely superb, and the depiction of two people trapped inside their own bodies struggling to make themselves understood was sublime…



    • 4/5
      Belinda Bauer does it again in this gripping story of Patrick Fort, a mildly autistic boy whose tentative contact with human emotions is destroyed by the death of his father. Determined to discover the secrets of death, Patrick enrolls in an anatomy course at Cardiff University Hospital. His dispassionate observations lead him to postulate questions no-one wants to answer as he is convinced the corpse his team is dissecting was murdered. He is expelled back into the care of his alcoholic mother before the hospital finally discovers the truth. Excellent writing, tight plotting and fascinating characters make Bauer’s books just as exciting as more conventional thrillers and a lot more interesting. As an aside, she always gives a nod to South Africa in her books – in Rubbernecker it the name of the pub where Patrick went with his dad, Rorke’s Drift.
    • 2/5
      My first Belinda Bauer and probably my last.

      Gimmick: Crime-fighting sleuth (Patrick Fort) with Asperger’s syndrome.

      The gimmick and some inconsistencies - eg, the inability of almost every other character, other than Patrick Fort, to understand how to cope with his behaviour, called for Suspension of Disbelief, which ruined it for me.

      it was also painful to read how even his professors had not been briefed on Patrick’s inability to use sarcasm or humour; even after some months after they’d first meet him, they were still assuming that he was being sarcastic rather than honest.


      You can read the rest of this review on my blog.
    • 4/5
      Rubbernecker – person who cranes, strains or otherwise awkwardly turns their head and stares while passing the scene of something interesting (usually morbid in nature). - Urban DictionaryPatrick Fort, a teenager with Asperger’s, is in his first year of anatomy studies at Cardiff University. Unlike the other students in the course, Patrick is not studying medicine. His reason for taking the course is personal; his father was killed in a hit-and-run motor accident and Patrick is trying to find out what happened to him after he died. Since, thanks to his condition, he cannot grasp philosophical or religious explanations of what comes after death, he is seeking to find the answers in the physical. It turns out his condition makes him very good at his studies. He begins to believe that the corpse known only as Number 19 that he and his fellow students are dissecting was murdered and he becomes obsessed with solving the crime.Although Patrick is the main focus of the novel, there are several other storylines and narrators. Much of the story is set in a neurological ward and involves the coma patients and their caregivers. Patrick shares much of the narrative at the beginning of the novel with Sam Galen who is struggling to recover from his coma. Like Patrick, he suspects he has witnessed a murder but, due to his condition, is unable to tell others about his suspicions. There is also Tracy, a self-centred nurse whose lack of empathy and laziness may be endangering those in her care and who is determined to seduce the wealthy husband of one of the coma patients. Eventually, all of these disparate storylines are brought together to a satisfactory conclusion as Patrick searches for the answer to what really happened to Number 19.It is hard not to compare Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer with The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night by Mark Haddon. Certainly there are a lot of similarities including Patrick’s obsession with a crime and the fact that much of the story is told in his uninflected and detached voice. However, Rubbernecker is much darker, almost chilling at times especially in the petty and deliberate cruelties aimed at those in need of care by those who are supposed to be caring for them. Patrick is a very sympathetic character – at times his inability to connect with others or to interpret emotional cues adds humour but, oddly, it never seems to make him ridiculous. In fact, it makes the reader feel more connected with him. Bauer also makes his alcoholic mother’s inability to cope with his condition more sympathetic than damning despite some of her most egregious actions – she is a mother who wants desperately to love her son but can’t get past his illness. In some ways, Sam is, perhaps, the most sympathetic of all, a man who is finally coming out of a decade-long coma only to discover how much of his life has slipped past him and how much of his fate is now in the hands of others.Bauer’s language throughout is precise and crisp moving the novel along at a fast pace. The different settings throughout the novel especially the coma ward and the student dissection room are very interesting, at times even disturbing. Rubbernecker is one very enjoyable read, both engrossing and chilling, the kind that will keep you up at night reading and several nights after thinking about what you just read.
    • 5/5
      With each book of hers that I have read, Belinda Bauer has been rising on my list of favorite crime writers, and now with Rubbernecker she has leapt to the top. This twisty story whose main character, Patrick sees life differently from others due to his Aspergers Syndrome, is a fresh and inventive crime story. When Patrick’s father was killed in a hit and run accident, the sudden loss was almost impossible for Patrick to understand. Even now, years later, he wants to find the link between life and death. His search for answers leads him to the study of anatomy, and the dissection of body Number 19. The cause of death is evasive, but Patrick slowly comes to believe that Number 19 was the victim of murder. This is a powerful and provocative story and getting to see, from the inside, how Patrick’s mind works was simply amazing. This author excels in crime novels that are thought provoking, surprising and creepy. With Rubbernecker she has delivered a tense and exciting story yet still has managed to fit in a little humor along with a large helping of compassion. I highly recommend this book.