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Medical Thrillers Booklist
Page Modified: June 1, 2007
Hospital or research center settings and bad things are happening to patients. Main characters are often medical professionals. Many writers in this genre are medical professionals and draw on their knowledge to punch up the plot lines.
A list of books, many of which received at least one starred review (indicating a work of unusual merit) from the following review sources: Booklist (BL), Publisher's Weekly (PW), Kirkus, and Library Journal (LJ). Additional titles of interest may be included on this list. Titles are alphabetically by author. Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.
- Flashback
Author: Braver, Gary
Publisher: Forge $ 25.95 ISBN: 0765302519 Date: 2005
PW
In this medical thriller from the author of Gray Matter and Elixer, Jack Koryan is attacked by a school of rare jellyfish, whose toxic stings put him in a three-year coma. When he awakens, he finds that the jellyfish toxin has left him with flashbacks, some of which leave him quaking in horror.
Suggested Reading: Medical Fiction
Updated 7.25.05 - The Genesis Code
Author: Case, John F.
Publisher: Fawcett/Columbine List Price: $24 ISBN: 0449911012 Date: 1997
LJ
PW
From the galley blurb:
The Genesis Code takes cutting-edge medical technology one step further, envisioning a world where sacred belief and modern science collide with cataclysmic and shocking repercusions. In this breakthrough debut, John F. Case gives us an electrifying thriller with all the hallmarks of satisfying fiction: lightening-fast pacing, white-knuckle suspense, and a secret that you will be so eager to discover that you will not put down The Genesis Code until the last satisfying page is turned.
- Harmful Intent
Author: Cook, Robin
Publisher: Putnam $ 18.95 ISBN: 0399134816 Date: 1989
Kirkus
Someone framed him for murder and detroyed his career. Now he is a marked man. A physician-turned-fugitive must save himself and put a stop to a lethal, diabolical plot in Cook's most mesmerizing techno-thriller to date.
Updated 9.26.05 - Blindsight
Author: Cook, Robin
Publisher: Putnam $ 21.95 ISBN: 0399136452Date: 1991
Kirkus
From Coma to Vital Signs, Robin Cook's state-of-the-art tales of medical horror have earned him a vast following worldwide. But rarely has he produced a chiller of such electrifying impact as Blindsight. Set in Manhattan, it tells of city forensic pathologist Dr. Laurie Engler's battle to foil a plot of unimaginable evil.
Updated 9.26.05 - Marker
Author: Cook, Robin
Publisher: Putnam $ 25.95 ISBN: 0399152938 Date: 2005
PW
New York City medical examiners Dr Laurie Montgomery and Dr. Jack Stapleton are back to pursue the causes of seemingly unrelated patient deaths. When Laurie is pulled into the nightmare as a potential victim herself, she and Jack race to connect the dots-and save her life.
Suggested Reading: Medical Fiction
Updated 4.25.05 - Andromeda Strain
Author: Crichton, Michael
Everyone on earth is suddenly susceptible to a lethal virus that kills some instantly while passing over others. The suspense grows as the microscopic seeds of earth's destruction spread.
Updated 10.3.05 - Mind Catcher
Author: Darnton, John
Publisher: Dutton $ 25.95 ISBN: 0525946624 Date: 2002
From the author of Neanderthal--Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Darnton--comes a medical adventure of science and technology in an astonishing netherworld of man and machine.
Updated 10.3.05 - With a Vengeance
Author: Dreyer, Eileen
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312265778 Date: 2003
Kirkus
PW
Dreyer evokes the edgy, sketchy world of crisis and trauma medical operations in this smart, provocative, page-turning thriller. She combines cutting edge suspense with characters as sharp as knives.
Updated 3.3.03 - Gravity
Author: Gerritsen, Tess
Publisher: Pocket List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0671016784 Date: 1999
PW
A young NASA doctor must combat a lethal microbe that is multiplying out of control - and in space. - Pocket marketing.
Suggested Reading: Medical Fiction - The Surgeon
Author: Gerritsen, Tess
Publisher: Ballantine $ 24.95 ISBN: 0345447832 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Murdering women in the most obscene way imaginable, a sadistic killer--called "The Surgeon"--terrorizes Boston. A victim of a similar crime, Dr. Catherine Cordell, has created a careful facade that is about to crack as the unknown killer cuts ever closer. "Deep, dark, and very disturbing".--Tami Hoag.
Suggested Reading: Serial Killers | Medical Fiction
Updated 7/16/01 - The Sinner
Author: Gerritsen, Tess
Publisher: Ballantine $ 24.95 ISBN: 0345458915 Date: 2003
Kirkus
After two women are killed, medical examiner Maura Isles and homicide detective Jane Rizzoli uncover an ancient horror in a cloistered convent that leads them toward a dawning revelation about the killer's identity--one that's too shattering to consider.
Suggested Reading: Crime Scene Investigations | Medical Thrillers
Updated 6.19.03 - Body Double
Author: Gerritsen, Tess
Publisher: Ballantine $ 24.95 ISBN: 0345458931 Date: 2004
Kirkus PW
Boston medical examiner Dr. Maura Isles and homicide detective Jane Rizzoli confront one of their most chilling cases--the murder of Maura's doppelgnger who is in fact her twin sister. Now an already bizarre murder investigation becomes a disturbing excursion into a past full of dark secrets in this "New York Times" bestseller.
Suggested Reading: Twins
Updated 6.21.04 - Skull Session
Author: Hecht, Daniel
Publisher: Viking Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0670876615 Date: 1998
PW
Rich in neurological and psychological detail, Skull Session is a powerful debut novel in which the solution to a mystery hinges upon essential and terrifying questions about what it means to be human. Paul Skoglund, at the mercy of the bizarre effects of his Tourette's syndrome, is desperate for a job. When his wealthy aunt hires him to repair her damaged home, Paul unknowingly enters a world where everything he values is at risk.
Suggested Reading: Debuts -
The Babel Effect
Author: Hecht, Daniel
Publisher: Crown $ 23 ISBN: 0609607294 Date: 2001
PW
Is violence a virus? Can your genes make you a killer? In The Babel Effect, from the author of the widely acclaimed Skull Session, a brilliant husband-and-wife research team gets a blank check from a billionaire industrialist to find answers to these most urgent of questions. They quickly learn a nightmarish fact: that our propensity for violence is like something contagious. Can they survive the search?
Updated 11/15/00 - Do No Harm
Author: Hurwitz, Gregg Andrew
Publisher: Morrow $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060008865 Date: 2002
A madman assaults nurses at the UCLA Medical Center Emergency Room, but is hurt in another attack and captured. ER chief David Speir treats the assailant. But troubles multiply when the madman escapes. To find him, David delves deep into his patient's mind--a hunt that will lead him into the darkness of his own past.
Updated 10.3.05 - The
Footprints of God
Author: Iles, Greg
Publisher: Scribner $ 25.95 ISBN: 0743234693 Date: 2003
PW LJ
From the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author comes a dazzling new thriller, rich with imagination and vision--an Andromeda Strain for the new millennium.
Suggested Reading: | Medical Thrillers
Updated 8.14.03 - The J Factor
Author: Kanar, Stephen
Publisher: Bantam $ 5.99 (paper) ISBN: 0553580795 Date: 2000
PW
From a new author comes this debut about an America overrun and controlled by private industry. An enormous pharmaceutical company controls the majority of organ transplants around the world. A young transplant surgeon discovers the company's sinister motives and knows he must go public. But he also knows what will happen to him if he does.
Suggested Reading: Debuts - Midnight Plague
Author: Keizer, Gregg
Publisher: Putnam $ 25.95 ISBN: 0399153195 Date: 2005
PW
A heart-pounding tale--part historical suspense, part medical thriller--is set in the final months of World War II when an American doctor travels to occupied France to uncover the German lab where a biological weapon is being tested.
Suggested Reading: Biological Warfare Thrillers
Updated 6.29.05 - Harmful Intent
Author: Kerr, Baine
Publisher: Scribner Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0684854139 Date: 1999
Kirkus
A doctor's inexplicable failure to diagnose breast cancer - every woman's worst nightmare - propels this riveting medical malpractice, legal thriller. With a fine sense of drama and an intimate knowledge of how the legal system really works in the face of power and politics, Blaine Kerr portrays a lone man's fight for justice and the surprising developments that his case takes.
Suggested Reading: Legal Stars - Wrongful Death
Author: Kerr, Blaine
Publisher: Scribner $ 25 ISBN: 0743211170 Date: 2002
PW
The worlds of European war crimes and killings in a Colorado hospital converge in this sensational courtroom thriller by a journalist who is also a medical malpractice lawyer.
Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
Updated 4/30.02 - Omega
Author: Lynch, Patrick
Publisher: Dutton List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0525943277 Date: 1997
Kirkus
PW
The bestselling author of Carriers delivers a cutting-edge, all-too-real medical thriller set against the terrifying backdrop of an imminent and devastating plague. As an increasing number of his patients succumb to a series of drug-resistant infections, surgeon Marcus Ford seeks out a genetically engineered antibiotic - the existence of which is only rumor.
Suggested Reading: Medical Fiction | Medical Thrillers -
The Mind Game
Author: MacDonald, Hector
Publisher: Ballantine $ 24.95 ISBN: 0345440226 Date: 2001
LJ
When Ben Ashurst agrees to participate in a study of the biology of human emotions for his charismatic Oxford tutor, he can't begin to imagine what lies ahead. With a luxury resort on a beach in Kenya as the site of the experiment and his beautiful new girlfriend along for company, it seems the perfect way to spend the Christmas holidays. But paradise starts to lose its luster when, without warning, Ben finds the experiment veering from abstract scientific theory into terrifyingly real danger.
Updated 12/14/00 - Mosaic
Author: Maxim, John R.
Publisher: Avon Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0380975440 Date: 1999
PW
Susannah Card is a natural "mosiac" - a woman who with control over her multiple personalities. But now she's being sucked into a government experiment that is suddenly going brutally, horribly, wrong. - Twice Dying
Author: McMahon, Neil
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24 ISBN: 0060193646Date: 2000
This debut thriller about an explosive relationship between an ER physician and a psychiatrist who treats violent sociopaths combines the gripping forensic detail of Patricia Cornwell and the spare, haunting prose of Michael Connelly.
Updated 10.3.05 - Critical Judgement
Author: Palmer, Michael
Publisher: Bantam $ 22.95 ISBN: 0553100742 Date: 1996
PW
An eagerly awaited new medical thriller from the author of Silent Treatment. Dr. Abby Dolan had moved to the small town of Patience, California, to be with her fiance, Josh Wyler. But the Josh she lives with now is a different man--manic, hostile, and prone to blinding headaches. Abby thinks Josh's maladies are caused by something more than his new job at Colstar, a chemical manufacturing giant. After seeing too many patients in the E.R. with inexplicable symptoms, Abby suspects that Colstar itself is the problem.
Updated 10.3.05 - Isolation Ward
Author: Spanogle, Joshua
Publisher: Delacorte $ 22 ISBN: 0385338538 Date: 2006
Kirkus
Debut novelist Spanogle draws on his own experiences as a medical student in this startling, scalpel-sharp medical thriller drawn straight from tomorrow's headlines.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 12.27.05 - The Select
Author: Wilson, F. Paul
Publisher: Morrow $ 22 ISBN: 0688046185 Date: 1994
PW
A blockbuster novel combining the terror of modern medicine run amok with gripping suspense. A gifted medical student, on scholarship at a prestigious teaching hospital, discovers a terrifying truth--a secret that reaches far from the confines of her medical school . . . and exposes her to a terrible danger.
Updated 10.3.05
Key Authors: Gary Braver, John Case, April Christofferson, Robin Cook, Michael Crichton, John Darnton, Eileen Dreyer, Tess Gerritsen, Leonard S. Goldberg, Michael Palmer, Steven Spruill. See also the Bio Thrillers book list.
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