Though Sloan has been unpopular due to his meddling in police investigations in the past, the chief believes that Sloan has often offered insights that will be valuable in examining older cases.

As the group begins examining old files, Sloan notices a case that, while never officially solved, was attributed to a serial killer, The Reaper, who was convicted of most of the murders with his signature, but not this one. When Sloan learns that there wasn't enough physical evidence to connect the murder to The Reaper, he voices his feelings that there had been a copycat murder overlooked. The police ignore him, saying that none of the specific details was ever released to the public so it had to be The Reaper. Sloan begins to look into other unsolved cases attributed to serial killers (there seem to have been a lot of serial killers in LA recently) and finds several.

Sloan's questions begin to anger his superiors, especially after he realizes that because each of the killings was so similar, if they weren't committed by the original serial killers, they must have been committed by someone who had access to the details of each case, perhaps someone even as close as the police department.

At the same time, one of Sloan's patients, restaurateur Stanley Tidwell, checks himself into the hospital for a kidney transplant. He brings his own surgeon who left Community General abruptly many years ago and his own donor, his son Billy. When Stanley dies after the transplant, all eyes turn toward the returning surgeon, but an excess of penicillin in the man's kidney suggests murder. Though the suspects are obvious, it takes Sloan awhile to put a list together and to uncover a motive.

The Silent Partner has a lot going on, yet it never quite comes together. It assumes a certain amount of familiarity with the characters from the television show that readers unacquainted with the series will be left out. The visual cues (facial expressions, etc.) that are relied upon in television are not well translated into words, leaving the characters uninteresting.

Dr. Mark Sloan is obviously charming, yet he never seems real. The two investigations keep Sloan on his toes (or on the heels of his sneakers) but his inclusion in the task force is never believable, nor is the inclusion of the FBI. Longtime fans of the television series may be willing to take a chance on this, but it is unlikely this mystery will win any new fans for either series.

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry