Product Description

With every one of his ten novels a New York Times bestseller, emergency medicine physician Michael Palmer is recognized by critics and fans worldwide as a master of medical suspense. Now Palmer delivers a relentless thriller that slices to our deepest fears with surgical precision—a tale as timely as it is terrifying, as harrowing as it is plausible. Welcome to The Society.

At the headquarters of Boston’s Eastern Quality Health, the wealthy and powerful CEO is brutally murdered. She’s not
the first to die—nor the last. A vicious serial killer is on the loose and the victims have one thing in common: they are all high-profile executives in the managed care industry.Dr. Will Grant is an overworked and highly dedicated surgeon. He has experienced firsthand the outrages of a system that cares more about the bottom line than about the life-and-death issues of patients. As a member of the Hippocrates Society, Will seeks to reclaim the profession of medicine from the hundreds of companies profiting wildly by controlling the decisions that affect the delivery of care. But the doctor’s determination has attracted a dangerous zealot who will stop at nothing to make Will his ally. Soon Will is both a suspect and a victim, a pawn in a deadly endgame. Then, in one horrible moment, Will’s professional and personal worlds are destroyed and his very life placed in peril.

Rookie detective Patty Moriarity is in danger of being removed from her first big case—the managed care killings. To save her career, she has no choice but to risk trusting Will, knowing he may well be the killer she is hunting. Together they have little to go on except the knowledge that the assassin is vengeful, cunning, ruthless—and may not be working alone. That—and a cryptic message that grows longer with each murder: a message Grant and Moriarity must decipher if they don’t want to be the next victims.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1503094 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09
• Format: Large Print
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 664 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Palmer's 11th medical thriller (Fatal; etc.) takes careful and bloody aim at the managed care industry, beginning with the murder of several loathsome CEOs of HMOs in Massachusetts. Dr. Will Grant is a talented and caring physician in the Boston area who works long hours and hates the unfair and obstructive practices of the big insurance companies. Patty Moriarity is a rookie state cop whose first big case is investigating the deaths of the health care vultures. After some early research, Patty suspects Will, but soon enough that's all straightened out and they're smooching on the couch. After Will is drugged and collapses during a delicate operation, things get rough: he's kicked out of his hospital for drug abuse and sued. Next he's being tortured, while Patty, shot after attempting to save the boorish chauvinist detective who has taken over her case, lies in a coma. The action is a bit preachy in the beginning, but once Palmer gets all his characters in place, the suspense builds. He wraps it all up with a slam-bang battle between our love-smitten duo and some extremely nasty health insurer executives and their loyal, gun-toting minions.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
Boston surgeon Will Grant's belief that the managed care industry is damaging his profession and the patients it serves has brought him to a leadership position in the Hippocrates Society, formed to bring these abuses to light. When CEOs of managed care companies are murdered, he finds himself a suspect and, in an unlikely alliance with police detective Patty Moriarty, sets out to find the killer. Palmer's settings, characters, and plot combine into a gripping story that will not disappoint his fans. Narrator J. Charles's voices for Will and Patty are believable and emotionally resonant. Unfortunately, his attempts to make the minor characters stand out are overdone and intrusive, with accents too pronounced, emotions too broad. Despite these weaknesses, this production is enjoyable, with enough tension to raise the blood pressure. M.A.M. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
Moral outrage over how managed-care companies make medical decisions based on the bottom line rather than on patient need is the central issue in the latest medical thriller from popular physician-author Palmer. No one knows the restraints managed care has put on the medical industry better than Dr. Will Grant. An extremely gifted doctor, Will is also an extremely vocal advocate for patients' rights; though admirable, this trait has caused him endless friction with the doctors with whom he works. His dedication to medicine has also led to divorce and countless other personal woes. Worse, zealots who take extreme measures to keep the HMOs in line seek Will out as an ally. Should he align himself with these self-righteous activists? Probably not, especially when highly paid executives from some of the wealthiest HMOs begin to turn up dead. On the case is rookie detective Patty Moriarty (well, she's second chair after almost screwing up the investigation completely), who reluctantly gets Will on her side. His knowledge of the issues is unsurpassed, but she fears her working relationship with him may put her in the killer's sites. Relevant, gripping reading with a provocative moral dilemma at its center. Mary Frances Wilkens
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