BLACK FLIES, by Shannon Burke

(originally posted on March 22, 2008)

Even before I read this slim tome my feeling was that this would be a darker, murkier version of Joe Connelly's BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, and I was mostly right. Burke's evocation of early 1990s New York is dead-on, as is the burnout and despair of paramedics who can't afford to understand or empathize with those they are tasked to treat. No wonder lines are crossed and consequences are enormous.