Book Review - The Fifth Vial by Michael Palmer
Category Book Review
Back to a little recreational reading... The Fifth Vial by Michael Palmer. It seems like I end up more disappointed than entertained with some of the medical thrillers by authors like Palmer and Cook. It's become far too easy to pick some part of the medical or insurance industry and beat it up during the plot-line. I went into this one wondering how and when the crusade would start. To my surprise, there really wasn't one. As such, I could just sit back and enjoy...
A private detective is contacted by a group called Organ Guard. They are concerned with illegal organ donations and transplants, and they would like to find out a little more about a nameless individual who could have been the victim of an unwilling bone marrow donation. The problem is, he's dead. At the same time, a doctor struggling through her med school rotations is asked to take some time off to deliver a talk down in Brazil. While down there, she is abducted, shot, and then found near death in an alley. The doctors had to take one of her lungs in order to save her life, but the insurance company can find no record of her hospital stay, the police report, or even the doctor who supposedly treated her. These two individuals, the doctor and the investigator, end up finding each other during their pursuit of the truth. And the truth appears to be pretty deadly in terms of who lives and who dies...
The plot centers around organ donation and transplants, as well as the ethics of deciding who deserves a new lease on life (and who should give them that privilege). It's clear early on that there's some society that is running their own organization that ensures that "high value" people are looked after when it comes to getting a new heart or lung. Things start to happen pretty quickly at the end, and the philosophy is one that should cause you to think a bit. There's also the matter of who knows your medical history, and what can be done with that information.
I felt the story could have moved a bit more in the middle, as things seemed to slow down somewhat during the doctor's struggle to connect the dots. But overall, it was difficult to put the book down and do other stuff. It was just the type of escape I was looking for in a recreational read...
Back to a little recreational reading... The Fifth Vial by Michael Palmer. It seems like I end up more disappointed than entertained with some of the medical thrillers by authors like Palmer and Cook. It's become far too easy to pick some part of the medical or insurance industry and beat it up during the plot-line. I went into this one wondering how and when the crusade would start. To my surprise, there really wasn't one. As such, I could just sit back and enjoy...
A private detective is contacted by a group called Organ Guard. They are concerned with illegal organ donations and transplants, and they would like to find out a little more about a nameless individual who could have been the victim of an unwilling bone marrow donation. The problem is, he's dead. At the same time, a doctor struggling through her med school rotations is asked to take some time off to deliver a talk down in Brazil. While down there, she is abducted, shot, and then found near death in an alley. The doctors had to take one of her lungs in order to save her life, but the insurance company can find no record of her hospital stay, the police report, or even the doctor who supposedly treated her. These two individuals, the doctor and the investigator, end up finding each other during their pursuit of the truth. And the truth appears to be pretty deadly in terms of who lives and who dies...
The plot centers around organ donation and transplants, as well as the ethics of deciding who deserves a new lease on life (and who should give them that privilege). It's clear early on that there's some society that is running their own organization that ensures that "high value" people are looked after when it comes to getting a new heart or lung. Things start to happen pretty quickly at the end, and the philosophy is one that should cause you to think a bit. There's also the matter of who knows your medical history, and what can be done with that information.
I felt the story could have moved a bit more in the middle, as things seemed to slow down somewhat during the doctor's struggle to connect the dots. But overall, it was difficult to put the book down and do other stuff. It was just the type of escape I was looking for in a recreational read...
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Posted by J. Kaye At 11:25:48 On 11/11/2007 | - Website - |