• The Good Nurse

  • A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder
  • By: Charles Graeber
  • Narrated by: Will Collyer
  • Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (4,604 ratings)

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The Good Nurse  By  cover art

The Good Nurse

By: Charles Graeber
Narrated by: Will Collyer
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Publisher's summary

Coming to Netflix this fall starring Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain⁠—a “stunning book...that should and does bring to mind In Cold Blood” and takes you inside the mind of America's most prolific serial killer, whose 16-year long "nursing" career left as many as 400 dead. (New York Times)

After his December 2003 arrest, registered nurse Charlie Cullen was quickly dubbed "The Angel of Death" by the media. But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favorite son, husband, beloved father, best friend, and celebrated caregiver. Implicated in the deaths of as many as 300 patients, he was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history.

Cullen's murderous career in the world's most trusted profession spanned sixteen years and nine hospitals across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. When, in March of 2006, Charles Cullen was marched from his final sentencing in an Allentown, Pennsylvania, courthouse into a waiting police van, it seemed certain that the chilling secrets of his life, career, and capture would disappear with him. Now, in a riveting piece of investigative journalism nearly ten years in the making, journalist Charles Graeber presents the whole story for the first time. Based on hundreds of pages of previously unseen police records, interviews, wire-tap recordings and videotapes, as well as exclusive jailhouse conversations with Cullen himself and the confidential informant who helped bring him down, The Good Nurse weaves an urgent, terrifying tale of murder, friendship, and betrayal.

Graeber's portrait of Cullen depicts a surprisingly intelligent and complicated young man whose promising career was overwhelmed by his compulsion to kill, and whose shy demeanor masked a twisted interior life hidden even to his family and friends. Were it not for the hardboiled, unrelenting work of two former Newark homicide detectives racing to put together the pieces of Cullen's professional past, and a fellow nurse willing to put everything at risk, including her job and the safety of her children, there's no telling how many more lives could have been lost.

In the tradition of In Cold Blood, The Good Nurse does more than chronicle Cullen's deadly career and the breathless efforts to stop him; it paints an incredibly vivid portrait of madness and offers a penetrating look inside America's medical system. Harrowing and irresistibly paced, this book will make you look at medicine, hospitals, and the people who work in them, in an entirely different way.

©2013 Charles Graeber (P)2013 Hachette Audio

What listeners say about The Good Nurse

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Healthcare Nightmare

This book leaves you wondering if you will ever feel safe going to a hospital or nursing home again. The details are true which lends you to a few shivers as to the depraved mental capacity and heinously wicked. Charles Cullen was definitely a very disturbed individual which had no conscious whatsoever throughout his reign. Police detectives used every trick to pin these crimes on Charles. After reading this, it certainly will make me have second thoughts about hospital staff and question more about they are doing. Worth a read definitely.

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WAY TOO LONG ...

I want my 12 hours back. Narrator did a lazy job of changing voices. It distracted me. Way too much repetitive detail with little explanation of why Charlie was doing this. Then the kidney transplant story and the long list of credits .... STOP.

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Terrifying

This story was terrifying. It didn’t offer jump scares, gore, or any traditional horror aspects. The fear comes directly from that fact that someone you have no choice but to trust can so easily get away with murder and be shuffled on to the next place to repeat his actions. The story was magnificently researched and presented.

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Don’t regret purchasing!

So interesting. I feel weird saying the book was amazing or even good considering the topic, but it was very well written and had my full attention from start to finish. The way hospitals tried covering their tracks and allowed him to get away with it for so many years was just sickening. I highly recommend. Well worth the credit!

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Good book, bad digital editing.

Could no audio editor catch that the short pronunciation of digoxin is "dij" not "dig".

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meh

Overall it was a decent read but the story dragged a bit for my liking.

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Great story, okay narration

The beginning of this book was a little repetitive with how the killer went about harming his patients but after getting to part 2 where they described the investigation and how he was caught, I was absolutely hooked. The narrator mispronounces numerous medical words (if he said hep-a-rin one more time I felt like heaving my phone through the wall). But all in all, definitely worth the listen.

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I hope I never have to go to a hospital.

What did you love best about The Good Nurse?

i loved the narrator. I think Will Collyer's performance was great. Hope he does more books.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Good Nurse?

When the police realize the hospitals have been hiding evidence from them.

Which scene was your favorite?

I was really liked by the scene where the police show the evidence to his good friend. Her reaction of shock and pain as she grasped the truth was moving. I loved her bravery and courage to do the right thing.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

In many ways this book was terrifying. I hope to never spend any time as a patient alone in a hospital. I want to have a very suspicious body guard with me at all times.

Any additional comments?

This book sort of reminded me of ZODIAC. It took so long for the police to figure out what was going on. Of course in this case, the various hospitals knew and hid the information about what this nurse was doing. A lot of people died who would not have if they had been honest.

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Shattering

After seeing the excellent Netflix movie based on this book, I wanted to give it a second listen. Graber gives us the kind of intimate look into his subject that Ann Rule was able to share re her suicide hotline companion Ted Bundy. Amy Loughren’s friendship, bravery and ultimate heartbreak tell us more about the gut terror of unmasking a trusted friend than any textbook definition of sociopathy. Utterly gripping, and for my money the best true crime book since The Stranger Beside Me.

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Drama Queen!!!

This guy was a drama queen. He had visions of a grand death and callously took the lives of other people because he was desperate for attention. I couldn't even finish listening to his pathetic story.

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