Darden North, MD

HOUSE CALL by DARDEN NORTH, MD PROLOGUE Its metal casing rusted by years of moisture, the glass doorknob creaked as it turned slowly to the right. Steaming water pouring from the nearby faucet masked this sound as well as that of the approaching footsteps, soft as they crossed the damp tile floor. Taylor firmly squeezed the plastic bottle, releasing salon conditioner in streaks over her freshly shampooed hair. Leaning forward to rinse, she felt a firm hand grab the highlighted strands.With her head angled severely backwards, screaming was impossible, particularly as the conditioner rolled down onto her face and mouth. Now almost entirely submerged in the slippery bathtub, Taylor Richards could not struggle but only gag and cough. Moments later her chest exploded, tearing and burning, as the thrusts between her ribs were swift and repeated. Blood pouring from the punctures mixed with the soapy water, forming a red scum on the sides of the porcelain tub. Glancing hopelessly at the bat...

POINTS of ORIGIN by DARDEN NORTH, MD Prologue The newspaper obituary was poorly written. Even my tenth grade education picked up the grammatical flaws, not to mention the rambling content and elementary sentence structure: at least two run-ons and way too many commas. Although there was a subject-verb disagreement toward the close of the piece, misspelling was not an issue; I guess the Larkspur Ledger mercifully ran it through spell-check. No doubt the bereaved, overwhelmed author could have benefited from such a book as Obituaries for Idiots or perhaps a Google search for tips on writing death announcements. Unfortunately, that long column, an eruption of gut-wrenching sadness and bitterness, would be just the first of two the writer would ultimately pen. Running alongside several others that day in the newspaper, the obituary mentioned the immediate family as survivors as though merely a single group was devastated. By anyone’s standards, the lives of ...

Reprinted from The Rankin Ledger April 19, 2008 North spins a gripping tale in second novel By Cyrus Webb Guest Columnist Darden North is not your typical author. In his day job, he's an obstetrician/ gynecologist at Jackson Healthcare for Women in Jackson and has delivered more babies than most people can count. But it's his work as a writer, and his second novel Points of Origin that is gaining cheers all across the country. The book, set in Mississippi, takes us into a world that seems so unlike any that many of us know with its glitz and glamour and high-priced facades. But a second look reveals that nothing is ever as it seems, and in that view, we begin to see more of the world in which all of us live. Take the main characters, the Foxworths. Dr. Dan Foxworth is a man who has amassed quite a name and fortune for himself and his wife and son, Sher. But like everything else in fictional Larkspur, Mississippi, things are never what they appear to be. After experiencing unim...