A Particularly Nasty Case – book review (AD)
I was kindly given an advanced electronic copy of A Particularly Nasty Case by Adam Kay in exchange for an honest review.*
A Particularly Nasty Case book blurb
When a noxious hospital consultant dies of a heart attack, fellow doctor Eitan Rose smells foul play.
But nobody else does, including some quite crucial players like the police and the coroner.
Eitan’s colleagues are already treating him with suspicion following his recent breakdown, and are sceptical of his increasingly wild theories.
When another doctor dies in similar circumstances, Eitan becomes convinced there is more to these deaths than meets the eye.
Is there really a killer marauding the wards or is Eitan losing the plot?
Deftly told and deathly funny, A Particularly Nasty Case is the unputdownable debut novel from Adam Kay, BAFTA-winning writer and author of multi-million global bestseller This is Going to Hurt.
My overall thoughts on A Particularly Nasty Case
This is a whodunnit with a twist: a murder mystery set inside a hospital, which is a genuinely refreshing take on the genre.
Dr Eitan Rose, a bipolar gay rheumatologist still struggling with the long shadow of his sister’s death, returns from a forced sabbatical only to find himself under the watchful eye of the rigid Dr Moran.
When Moran turns up dead, Eitan is the only one who suspects murder.
When another senior doctor, Dr Stein, also dies suddenly, Eitan teams up with his new beau, Cole, to investigate what no one else seems willing to question.
The result is chaotic, irreverent, and very funny.
The plot itself isn’t humorous, but the delivery absolutely is — packed with hilarious one-liners, clever wordplay, and over-the-top British situational comedy.
There’s heavy gallows humour, the kind you’d expect from a burned-out NHS doctor, and a lot of very Adam Kay-style self-deprecation.
Adam Kay’s voice is so distinctive that I can hear it as I read – dry, frantic, self-deprecating, and laced with gallows humour.
Possibly helped by the fact that my six-year-old is obsessed with The Adventures of Paddington on Netflix and Kay narrates it, so his cadence now lives rent-free in my head.
But even without that, his narrative voice is unmistakable, and it works brilliantly in this strange, irreverent hospital-set mystery.
What really grounded the novel for me was the NHS setting.
The crumbling estates, mouldy ceilings, ancient computers that take a geological age to load, and the stark contrast between frontline conditions and the glossy executive corridors for senior management all rang painfully true.
As someone who currently works in the NHS, the environmental realism felt spot-on and added an extra layer of authenticity to the story.
Content-wise, this won’t be for everyone: there’s strong language, recreational drug use, unethical decisions, mental health stigma, and plenty of moral greyness.
The humour is very British — quirky, awkward, and absurd — which some American readers might struggle with, but I found it gripping and laugh-out-loud funny.
Yes, the ending is fairly predictable, but the journey there is wildly entertaining.
With its raucous dialogue, engaging cast of characters, and sharp social satire, A Particularly Nasty Case is a funny, irreverent, murder (?) mystery that’s less about the crime and more about the chaos of broken systems, broken people, and very British dysfunction.
Not perfect, but thoroughly enjoyable — and unmistakably Adam Kay.
With thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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*Disclaimer
This review has been written with 100% honesty.
I was not financially compensated for this post. I was given a copy of this book for review purposes. The opinions expressed in this post are completely my own based on my own experience.
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