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December Book Club

  • December 17, 2019
  • 19:00
  • The Wine Pub 2907 Shelter Island Dr #108 San Diego, CA 92106

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Take a break from all of your holiday preparations and join us for book club!

The December book club selection is The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness and Murder by Charles Graeber.

Summary of "The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness and Murder" 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 16 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 10 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.

Looking ahead: For those that like to get a head start on their calendars, book club is always held at 7 pm on the third Tuesday of the month. The book selection for January is "I Was Anastasia" by Ariel Lawhon, location TBD.

Stay social with us using the links below!

Naval Air Station North Island

Coronado, CA 92118

*Base access required

Mailing Address:

941 Orange Ave, Box 233

Coronado, CA 92118


Phone: (619) 775-9547

This is a non-federal entity, not a part of the Department of Defense or any of its components, and has no governmental status.

Naval Officers' Spouses' Club of San Diego is recognized by the IRS as a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization.