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I don’t know what I expected when I picked this book up, but I work in the medical profession, so the name alone induced me to read the story.
It didn’t take much reading before I was dragged into the story, making rounds at Eastern Mass Medical Center with Dr. Jessie Copeland and hating Dr. Carl Gilbride (Jessie’s boss and the head of the Neurosurgical Department), for the pompous ass that he is. I felt the anxieties that the staff shared, and I became involved in the progress of the patients on Surgical Seven.
Carl Gilbride was forever dumping his responsibilities on Jessie, not wanting to do anything more than glow in the aftermath of using a robot to perform a medical miracle on an Olympic star. The spotlight became his job as he was invited onto television talk shows, interviewed on radio and flown back and forth to various speaking engagements. He only wanted to be notified of new patients if they were financially affluent…otherwise Jessie was to handle his workload as well as her own.
In having to choose between seeing Eastman Tolliver, the bearer of a four-million-dollar grant for the department’s continued research into their robotics program, and being seen on yet another TV show, Carl asked Jessie to cover for him while he was away. Jessie did her best, but when Mr. Tolliver requested he be present to watch his investment in action, Carl immediately made arrangements to be the star surgeon.
Enter Alex Bishop, an FBI agent, wanted by his department for failing to complete an assignment and running from those who were sent to bring him in so he couldn’t track his prey -- Claude Malloche. When he got word that his target might show up at the hospital, he had to find a way to get inside, and Jessie was just what he needed...in more ways than one.
I turned page after page in rapid succession, hating to put this book down even when sleep beckoned. The events that took place -- terrorist activities more deadly than those on 9-11 -- made me shudder. Deadly gas was released in the hospital lab with other such bombs planted throughout the city. Men and women alike were murdered. Anyone standing in the way of what this man wanted was immediately dealt with when he used his trademark -- a bullet between the eyes at the bridge of the nose and being delivered from absurd distances. Such were the abilities of this madman.
Mr. Palmer doesn’t make it easy for you to pick out this source of the evil -- and The Patient will keep you spellbound to the very last page. An excellent read -- both suspenseful and chilling. I give it both thumbs up!
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