The Patient: A Novel - Softcover

Palmer, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553580388 ISBN 13: 9780553580389

Publisher: Bantam, 2001

Synopsis

Neurosurgeon Jessie Copeland works at the very frontier of neurosurgery, developing technology that could revolutionize the treatment of brain tumors. But her work brings her to the attention of an infinitely dangerous man.

Claude Malloche is brilliant, remorseless—a terrorist without regard for human life. He is also ill with a brain tumor considered to be inoperable. Nothing can stop Malloche from getting to the woman he believes can cure him. For those caught in his path, the nightmare has just begun...and no one is more aware of the stakes than Jessie Copeland.

In brain surgery there are no guarantees—but that’s exactly what Malloche demands. With disaster just one cut away, Jessie faces the most harrowing case of her life—and the price of failure may be thousands of lives....

About this title

Review:

The Patient, Michael Palmer's ninth medical suspense novel, is a fast-paced beat-the-clock thriller. Someone is killing off the world's most gifted neurosurgeons, and Alex Bishop, a renegade CIA agent, thinks he knows who it is. Bishop is out to settle his score with Claude Malloche, an international assassin responsible for the death of Bishop's brother. When he learns that Malloche is afflicted with an inoperable brain tumor, Bishop understands why the murdered neurosurgeons died, and where Malloche will strike next. Meanwhile, Jessie Copeland, an MIT-trained mechanical engineer and neurosurgeon, is working to perfect a robotic device that will revolutionize brain surgery.

One of the patients awaiting surgery at Boston's Eastern Massachusetts Medical Center is Malloche--but which one? No one has ever been able to identify the assassin, and Jessie is hardly well known enough to attract his notice. But ARTIE, the robotic device, is--and Malloche will stop at nothing to ensure that it's used to save his own life. He threatens to release a deadly nerve toxin on thousands of innocent people, and Jessie is forced to save him at the cost of her own safety.

Notable for his swift pacing, well-drawn minor as well as major characters, and medical expertise, Palmer delivers the goods with this heart-stopping read. -- Jane Adams

From the Inside Flap:

WARNING: USE OF THIS BOOK MAY CAUSE SIDE EFFECTS INCLUDING SOARING BLOOD PRESSURE, SLEEPLESSNESS, AND HEART-POUNDING TERROR.
Neurosurgeon Jessie Copeland works at the very frontier of neurosurgery, developing technology that could revolutionize the treatment of brain tumors. But her work brings her to the attention of an infinitely dangerous man.
Claude Malloche is brilliant, remorseless -- a terrorist without regard for human life. He is also ill with a brain tumor considered to be inoperable. Nothing can stop Malloche from getting to the woman he believes can cure him. For those caught in his path, the nightmare has just begun...and no one is more aware of the stakes than Jessie Copeland.
In brain surgery there are no guarantees -- but that's exactly what Malloche demands. With disaster just one cut away, Jessie faces the most harrowing case of her life -- and the price of failure may be thousands of lives....

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0553580388
• ISBN 13: 9780553580389
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 448