Borrowed ( )

Dr. Abby Dolan has followed her boyfriend Josh to a small California community, Patience, where he has been hired at a major facility and she finds work in the emergency room of the local, extremely well-appointed, hospital. But Josh is acting strangely now, some of Abby’s patients are exhibiting puzzling symptoms, and a few individuals seem to be experiencing psychotic rages so extreme that people are getting killed. Abby begins searching for the truth, with the help of handsome colleague Dr. Lew Alvarez, but there are many in the town who don’t want them to discover what is really going on and who are willing to do anything to prevent them from learning about it…. This is a typical medical thriller, a genre I don’t read very much but which I find can be quite perfect as a lazy summer read. The author was himself a physician and the medical aspects, particularly the type of training needed to make a good emergency room specialist, are quite interesting; the thriller aspect of the book is indeed fast-paced and cinematic. Having been published in 1996, some particular elements seem quaint (his treatment of MRI machines, for example, but then I’m reading the book 25 years later, when such machines are far more common and well-understood), and despite having lived there for almost two decades I still can’t for the life of me place a downtown high-rise in San Francisco from which one could see both Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge, but these are minor quibbles. Mostly, a fairly mindless and entertaining way to spend time in the summer - on a beach, perhaps, or in a sultry backyard. Mildly recommended. ( )

I'm really enjoying this so far. The toddler keeps interrupting me though, and has twice hid the book from me. So it's taking a while.

*edit to say that I'm not ignoring my kid to read this book. He's playing with toys or napping when I pick it up, but it's like he KNOWS

A great mystery for conspiracy theorists. I really liked the characters, the style, everything but the plot. It was too far-fetched for a mystery. It would have fit better in a sci-fi futuristic book. It would make sense as a cautionary tale, but not in a vein of realism. ( )

Not as good as some of his other books. (Feb 08) ( )