Nothing Lasts Forever » (Reprint)

Sidney Sheldon's remarkable career as a novelist began when he was 50 years old, after he had already been a success in film and television. Perhaps it was his sensibility for screen entertainment that made him so readily able to produce his addictive novels of love and suspense.

Three young doctors-their hopes, their dreams, their unexpected desires... Dr. Paige Taylor: She swore it was euthanasia, but when Paige inherited a million dollars from a patient, the D.A. called it murder. Dr. Kat Hunter: She vowed never to let another man too close again-until she accepted the challenge of a deadly bet. Dr. Honey Taft: To make it in medicine, she knew she'd need something more than the brains God gave her. Racing from the life-and-death decisions of a big major hospital to the tension-packed fireworks of a murder trial, Nothing Lasts Forever lays bare the ambitions and fears of healers and killers, lovers and betrayers. And proves once again that no reader can outguess Sidney Sheldon, the master of the unexpected.

Publishers Weekly

Aficionados of cliches and stereotypes will derive extraordinary pleasure from practically every page of this formulaic potboiler from the bestselling Sheldon. As the novel opens, Dr. Paige Taylor is on trial for the mercy killing of a patient (Did she off the guy for his fortune?); the action then flashes back five years, when Paige and two other female doctors meet as first-year residents at a San Francisco hospital. Paige is the dedicated one, Kate Hunter (``Kat'') an African American whose mother inspired her to lofty ambitions (``You can be anything you want to be. It's up to you'') and Betty Lou Taft (``Honey''), the plain Southern belle whose diligent application of techniques gleaned from the Kama Sutra has assured her a professional niche. The trials and tribulations of both patients and medicos include suspenseful operations, natural deaths, murder and suicide (``All this time he was calling out for help and I didn't hear him.''). Even Sheldon's typically careful research seems forced and out-of-place: tidbits about African tribal lore and medical terms and procedures only interrupt the bathos. Nonetheless--contrary to the book's title--Sheldon's popularity will no doubt remain undiminished. Literary Guild main selection. (Sept.)