Product Description

In the heat of a passionate encounter, ecstasy suddenly turns to terror for renowned geneticist and TV personality Dr. Kathleen Sullivan. Stricken by a brain hemorrhage, she is rendered completely paralyzed and speechless . . . but still utterly aware; a prisoner inside her own body.

Kathleen is rushed to a Manhattan hospital, her chances of survival slim. Even if she pulls through, the likelihood that she’ll sustain permanent brain damage is near one hundred percent. But neither outcome can compare to the insidious fate in store for her masterminded by the very people entrusted with saving her life. As her lover, ER chief Richard Steele, watches and waits for a miracle, Kathleen becomes a pawn in a clandestine plot that runs deeper than medical politics–and reaches into the highest echelons of power at New York City Hospital.

Placed in the hands, and at the mercy, of revered Chief of Neurosurgery Dr. Tony Hamlin, Kathleen descends into a waking nightmare. Powerless to resist the sinister experiments she is subjected to, and unable to cry out for help, she must fight desperately to communicate her tortured, trapped thoughts to Steele–before her tormentors can carry their bizarre and potentially lethal work to its completion.

Ruthlessly determined to achieve their goals, the secret cabal of ambitious physicians will go to any length to avoid discovery, defy the law, and make medical history at all costs . . . even the human life they are sworn to preserve.

For anyone who has ever had a mortal fear of hospitals, and the sense of powerlessness that often transpires within their cold, sterile corridors, Peter Clement’s Critical Condition will provide chilling new nightmares–along with infectious suspense.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1431067 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-30
• Released on: 2002-04-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

From Publishers Weekly
A stem cell conspiracy endangers the lives of two prominent physicians in Clement's latest, a crisp, fast-paced medical murder mystery that begins when geneticist Kathleen Sullivan blacks out while she's in bed with her partner, Richard Steele. Head of the ER at a prominent New York City hospital, Steele helps stabilize her condition, but Sullivan's prospects look grim when bleeding in her brain renders her paralyzed, though still conscious and able to communicate by blinking. Sullivan finds herself being treated by a pair of corrupt doctors, one of whom capitalizes on her condition to inject something into her brain. Sullivan helps Steele and the police get to the heart of a conspiracy that involves several doctors who are trying to cash in on the lucrative potential of stem cell technology by experimenting on human patients. But the program also arouses the ire of a lunatic from an anti-abortion group who starts taking out the guilty doctors in a variety of grotesque murders. Clement (Mutant; The Procedure) keeps the action sprinting along throughout, using concise medical explanations to keep the story from getting bogged down. His characters are rather forgettable Steele, Sullivan and the other doctors frequently veer toward stereotype, and the killer is borderline cartoonish but Clement's plotting carries the day as he keeps his story line from going over the top at several critical junctures. His sense of command and ability to generate suspense and tension make this a solid winner.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
In this lively medical thriller, ER physician Clement bringsback doctors and lovers Kathleen Sullivan and Richard Steele anddetective McKnight from Mutant (2001). Sullivan suffers a"stroke," and her surgeon, involved in covert research under chiefneurosurgeon Tony Hamlin, keeps her speechless withoversedation. Unable to move, she still hears much of the ego-centeredplotting that preoccupies this tale of greed, fear, andbetrayal. Lurking around the fringes is former pathology assistant RobLowe, one of the Legion of the Lord, a violent antiabortion group. Asrelations among the doctors involved in Hamlin's research becomestrained, Sullivan and Steele are unwittingly drawn into theskulduggery. In tandem, Lowe begins doing the Lord's work onHamlin and associates because of their research with stem cells; andcorpses, often in pieces, start piling up. Clement's capability fordescribing his characters' inner thoughts and emotions ensures a castof believable human beings, and his knack for credibly motivating themgenerates many surprising turns of events. William Beatty
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Peter Clement, M.D., is a physician who headed an emergency room at a major metropolitan hospital and now maintains a private practice. He is also the author of Lethal Practice, Death Rounds, The Procedure, and Mutant. He is married to a physician and has two sons.

Customer Reviews

A Must Read
Peter Clement is a natural, the novel is full of surprises and action, and difficult to put down. Any book that keeps my interest over sleep and meals deserves the highest score. I have become a devout follower. I stongly recommend this book - A must read.

Unauthorized research has fatal consequences.
In Peter Clement's "Critical Condition," Dr. Kathleen Sullivan suffers a brain hemorrhage and spends most of the book flat on her back, unable to move or to communicate normally. Her lover, Dr. Richard Steele, Chief of ER, is heartbroken, especially since his first wife died after a battle with cancer. Will Richard once again lose a woman he loves? Even if Kathleen survives, will she ever be able to function normally again?

There is a great deal more at stake here, however, than Kathleen's medical problems. There are a number of doctors in New York City Hospital who are engaged in unauthorized research that could revolutionize the treatment of a variety of medical conditions, including heart failure and strokes. When Kathleen, without her consent, becomes a guinea pig in this new research, she cannot easily communicate her terror to Richard or to the police. Complicating matters still further, there is a homicidal maniac on the loose, and he is targeting those very doctors engaged in this new research.

Although the plot of "Critical Condition" is extremely convoluted, Clement manages to hold the reader's interest with crisp dialogue and fast-paced action. There is plenty of gore here, as people are dispatched in extremely messy ways. One of Clement's strengths is his talent for explaining arcane scientific concepts, and his information about stem cell research is fascinating. Another plus is Clement's restraint in not making either of his heroes, Kathleen or Richard, super-detectives. Instead they are portrayed as vulnerable people, whose medical knowledge does not protect them from the evil that surrounds them. Finally, Clement wisely shows that there is a moral gray area surrounding controversial scientific research. Do the potential benefits that may result from stem cell research offset the moral questions that such research raises? Does the United States government handcuff its scientists too much with restrictive rules, or are these rules designed to protect us all from dangerous and untested practices? These are valid questions, which are intelligently addressed. Clement gives no pat answers; he allows the reader to make his own judgments concerning these thorny issues.

What weaken the book are the stereotypical villains and the melodramatic scenes at the end of the novel when the mastermind is finally revealed. Clement makes one huge error. He kills off so many people that it is fairly easy to figure out who the main villain is by the process of elimination. However, for medical thriller junkies, "Critical Condition" does provide plenty of excitement, action and scientific food for thought.

exciting medical thriller
Geneticist Dr. Kathleen Sullivan and ER Chief Dr. Richard Steele are making love when she suddenly collapses in pain from a tremendous headache caused by a massive brain hemorrhage. Kathleen loses almost all movement, as she has become a quadriplegic with several critical bodily reflexes failing. She is reduced to communicating with one wink meaning yes and two winks no.

Dr. Tony Hamlin heads up the medical team with assists from Dr. Jim Norris and Dr. Lockman. The staff tries an illegal experimental infusion through Kathleen's neck. Desperate she struggles to inform her beloved Richard that the crack medical team is using her as a guinea pig before they either kill her or leave her with a malfunctioning brain.

CRITICAL CONDITION is an exciting medical thriller that never slows down due to the intrepid frantic actions of the lead female protagonist. The story belongs to Kathleen whose efforts to convey information is difficult and frustrating to her and to the receiver of her eye lid transmissions. The support cast augments the plot with strong characterizations though the constant reference to Richard's dismal handling of his deceased wife's cancer adds little to the current dilemma except to make the hero seem unreliable when it counts. In this potent story that is unnecessary as Richard is already laden with handicaps such as doubting his peers, dealing with the couple's teenage children from separate marriages, coping with the lack of complex communications, and handling the overall health of his beloved. Each of these is handled with depth and dexterity as they nurture the forward thrust of Peter Clement's exhilarating thriller.

Harriet Klausner