SOURCE: Leggett, John. “Can Death Be Humane and Cost-Effective?” Los Angeles Times (3 October 1995): 6.

In the following review, Leggett comments that the novel In the Name of Mercy is a provocative story, but that it fails to clarify the arguments for and against doctor-assisted suicide.

Nicholas Delbanco has taken on a provocative theme in his new novel, In the Name of Mercy.

He has seen the conflict between a doctor's Hippocratic obligation to heal, to do no harm, to leave the ending of a life to God and the contrary belief, acclaimed by Dr. Jack Kevorkian, that there is mercy in hastening the death of an incurable patient in pain.

It is certainly a timely issue, given that today's medical profession is so technically advanced that it can, at great expense, prolong life unnaturally.

Delbanco lays his tale of healing and death at the Trueman-Andrews hospital and hospice in...