Plastic surgeon's novel way of unwinding

AMY MCGILLIVRAY

Working on his first book was a way of unwinding at the end of a hard day of operating for one plastic surgeon with a penchant for prose.

"It really is fun," Tristan de Chalain says.

"You can do things to people in print that you can't do in real life."

Dr de Chalain has been working on the recently-published thriller in his spare time over the past 10 years.

Wolf's Paw is about a rogue intelligence agent seeking revenge for the death of his stepmother due to what he believes is medical malpractice.

One of the doctors he sets his sights on is a plastic surgeon but instead of killing him, as he has done the others, he decides to seduce the surgeon's wife.

Dr de Chalain, who was born in Canada, raised in South Africa and has worked in Atlanta, was careful to set the book only in places he has lived or worked.

In the background of the story is the war in Angola where both hero and villain first crossed paths.

While Dr de Chalain never fought in the war, he was part of the South African Navy at the time and had friends who were killed and injured in the conflict.

The Remuera resident says his work has brought him across both "wonderful people and not so wonderful people".

Writing is his way of telling some of the great stories he has come across as a surgeon, although he stresses that while the locations, history and some of the events are true, the story and characters are fictional.

The father of two qualified as a plastic surgeon in 1992 and came to New Zealand five years later, so it's no surprise that his first novel is based around the profession.

"I know plastic surgery well so the main character is a plastic surgeon.

"You're seeing a lot of very realistic plastic surgery," he says.

He is already working on his next book which is also based on the profession. It will be about a plastic surgeon who kidnaps people in order to perform any plastic surgery he deems necessary.

"It's postulating what it would be like if you had unlimited funds and could go around doing guerilla surgery."

That may seem far fetched but Dr de Chalain has no shortage of ideas.

"The ideas are never a problem. It's making them work."

- © Fairfax NZ News