The Second Opinion

Thea, a young lady suffering from Aspergers syndrome, returns home from Africa as a physician for Doctors Without Borders to tend to her father, who finds himself in a vegetative state after being hit by a car. I say ‘finds himself,’ because Thea quickly realizes he is not a vegetable, but is suffering from what might be one of the more horrifying conditions imaginable; locked-in syndrome. Fully aware but fully paralyzed, he is completely incapable of anything more than moving his eye a fraction of an inch.

The book was especially relatable for me as both syndromes hit close to home. Though I don’t have Aspergers, the social awkwardness aspect of it is something that I share, so Thea is one of the more identifiable characters show more I’ve come across in some time. I’ve also a regular sufferer of sleep paralysis, which I can say is incredibly terrifying even though it usually only lasts a minute or two. I shudder at the mere thought of being in that state permanently.

The mystery comes in when Thea realizes her father’s accident may not have been an accident, she has to overcome the social limitation set upon her by Asperger’s to wade through hospital politics to carry out her investigation. I’m not terribly fond of the genre, but I enjoyed seeing Thea overcome her ‘disability’ for the sake of her father, and this made the book very readable for me personally. show less

Review: The Second Opinionby Michael Palmer. 4.5* 06/21/2022

I enjoy reading books with a medical aspect as the theme. I have always enjoyed Michael Palmer’s book. He is a great writer, organized, and describes well develop characters. This book is based on Asperger Syndrome information and how it affects different people in various ways.

Dr. Thea Sperilakis who has asperger’s couldn’t handle the suburban hospital that her father supervises so she left to practice in Africa. Her father is severely hurt in an accident she must go home and talk over the situation with her siblings. Thea finds out her father is in a coma and after a while her siblings argue with her to let him pass. Thea is convinced her father is showing signs of show more communicating with her but her father hides it from everyone else. However, know one believes her accept there is someone else who knows it is possible she is telling the truth.

Was the accident premeditated, did someone want him dead, and was there someone giving her father a sedative to keep him from communicating with his daughter? I enjoyed the book but just a little disappointed with the ending. show less

It might be your worst nightmare: you wake up from a terrible accident to discover that you are fully cognizant yet utterly unable to move your arms, legs, head, vocal cords, or even eyes. Effectively cut off from the world, you have no way of communicating. All your visitors assume you’re in a coma, but you can hear and understand their conversations and even see them talking about you. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

Michael Palmer’s latest medical thriller addresses some of the medical, legal, and ethical issues related to what doctors call “locked-in syndrome” through the eyes of the patient’s daughter, a doctor who, in a fascinating character twist, suffers from Asperger Syndrome. Like a female version of TV’s show more Dr. Gregory House, Thea Sperelakis is a brilliant physician who struggles in social situations because of her lack of mental or verbal filters. She says exactly what she’s thinking—all the time. And with her father, a world-renowned internist, trapped inside his disabled body, she has a lot to think about. Including what really might have happened to him and who might have a motive to do away with him once and for all. As clues and suspicions stack up, Thea realizes that her father’s life is not the only one in danger. And in the end, as with all good mysteries, the real threats come from the least expected source.

The Second Opinion is interesting and suspenseful—a good combination for a medical thriller. The character intrigue of a protagonist with a form of high-functioning Autism is fascinating, though the author admits in an afterword that some of Thea’s interactions may not be terribly plausible. Still, it’s unconventional enough to keep the reader’s guessing, and the story is a good one, with just the right combination of medical terminology, conspiracy, and hospital politics. The book contains some inexplicit sexual content and a bit of language, but nothing unacceptable for this genre. Fans of Palmer’s previous books or of TV shows like House and Gray’s Anatomy will find this a welcome prescription for combating literary malaise. show less

In The Second Opinion, Dr. Thea Sperelakis, a brilliant doctor with Asperger’s Syndrome returns from the Congo to find her equally brilliant father in the hospital in critical condition. The more time Thea spends at the hospital, the more she realizes that “accident” that injured her father was no accident, and that some nefarious things are going on at her father’s institute. With the help of her security guard boyfriend, and even more brilliant yet over the top eccentric brother, she tries to uncover what is going on at the hospital.

There was a lot that I liked about this novel. Thea was a fascinating character, with her blunt talk, her lack of understanding of social cues, yet she was incredibly smart and intuitive. The show more dialogue was also a strength, especially when it came to Thea and her brother, Dimitri. Thea acts as a sleuth, trying to put together the mystery of what is going on at the Beaumont Clinic, an institution clearly not on the up and up. What I didn’t like was the ending and the big reveal of who the ultimate bad guy was. It was inconsistent with what led up to it and was not remotely believable. The ending was a let down, but overall I did enjoy the novel. There was more to like about it than dislike.

Carl Alves – author of The Invocation show less

Palmer does a credible job here of building a whodunnit beginning with a hit-and-run attack on a prominent physician, which leads to the discovery of a network of deceit, greed, and murder within the structure of a huge medical center.

He chooses to have the story carried by a character with Asperger Syndrome, and puts both the weaknesses and strengths of her personality to good use. (In an afterward, Palmer shares the fact that his son also has Asperger.)

The cautionary tale -- because it wouldn't be a Michael Palmer novel without at least one of the villains being modern medicine itself -- takes aim at the increased utilization of sophisticated computerization of medical practice and record-keeping with the subsequent loss of show more doctor-to-patient interactions. show less

Dr. Thea Sperelakis, who has been working outside the country after seeking a change, returns to the Boston area when her father (also a physician) is involved in a hit-and-run and is hospitalized and in a coma. Though the rest of her siblings (a twin brother and sister, also doctors, and another brother who mostly stays at home as a genius recluse) feel there is not much hope, Thea is not quite ready to give up hope, especially when she believes her father is communicating with her from his hospital bed via eye blinks. Soon Thea is convinced that something evil underlies his accident, that it was indeed no accident, and she seeks to discover who and why someone would want to see her father dead.

It has been a while since I've read a show more medical thriller. This was an abridged audio and as abridgments go, it was fair, though somewhat choppy at times with abrupt transitions, etc. But the meat of the story was there. I enjoyed it well enough, though found that it stretched the edges of realism a few times, which thrillers tend to do. Thea was characterized as having Asperger Syndrome, which seemed mostly realistic, although I felt that the audiobook reader roboticized the voicing of her character a bit too much. Overall, a decent read, though not one that's particularly likely to stick with me for very long. show less

As with all of Palmer's earlier books, I was hooked from page 1 and read it in one sitting. The story opens with the return home of Doctors Without Borders internist Thea Sperelakis. Her father, world renowned internist Petros Sperelakis, has been critically injured in an auto accident and is in a coma. She discovers that Petros suffers from Locked In Syndrome; he is conscious but unable to move and communicate, except with her via visual cues. From Petros, Thea learns that the accident was intentional and that he believed a colleague was involved.

The family dynamic is prominent in the story. Thea has Asperger Syndrome and one of her brothers has a similar, undiagnosed disorder that prevents him from working or attending school. Her show more twin siblings are both orthopedic surgeons who don't want their father on life support. None of them get along, except the twins. All are scarred from a childhood with an absent but critical father. One of the major issues in The Second Opinion is the medical industry switch from paper records to electronic records. Thea is unable to obtain access to the hospital's electronic records. In order to prove her theories about what is happening to patients, she needs this access. Does she find a way around this? Read the book! show less