The Last Surgeon

Michael Palmer and Robin Cook are the kings of medical thrillers. Robin Cook arrived first and Michael Palmer came in after him, and some say surpassed him in offering his readers an engaging, suspenseful, and tense novel. Medical thrillers differ from crime fiction in that the heroes and generally also the villains are medical personnel and institutions. The stories describe medical situations in a non-gory fashion, usually with current social medical problems being the prime focus. This tale begins with a sadistic killer-for-hire who specializes in murders that appear to be suicides. He mockingly calls them "non-murders." He offers a nurse a choice of either killing herself or see her beloved sister killed horribly and painfully, and then be brutally murdered herself. We meet a doctor, Nick Garrity, the hero of the tale, who behaved heroically and with compassion in Afghanistan, and is called Dr. Nick Fury by his friends, after a comic book hero. He runs a mobile medical unit with an unusually compassionate nurse, who has a computer genius foster child. The unit helps people in need who are unable to use a hospital. Garrity suffers from post-combat-stress because he saw a suicide bomber kill his fiancée and two dozen other hospital personnel. He was saved during the bombing by a friend who disappears after returning to the US. Garrity tries to find him. He discovers that another ex-soldier disappeared in the same way, both saying that they were recalled by the military before they were last seen. The person in charge at the VA, the second villain in the thriller, after the sadistic killer-for-hire, refuses to help Garrity locate either man, just as he had been refusing benefits to soldiers who fought for their county in Afghanistan and are now, like Garrity, suffering post-stress-syndrome. But Garrity finds the other ex-soldier who, surprisingly, acts like a zombie. Two other medical institutions are soon revealed as third and forth villains. We meet Jillian Coates, the very attractive and resourceful sister of the murdered nurse, who is also a nurse, and who is convinced that her sister was murdered. Julian finds many Nick Fury comic books in her murdered sister's home and is puzzled about their significance. She goes on an all-night call-in radio program and tells her sister's story, and her home is burnt down the next day. However, an ex-soldier who had served with Garrity, who heard Jillian's broadcast, tells her that Garrity had been called Nick Fury. The sadistic killer sees Jillian and is attracted to her. He decides that he needs to have sex with her. So begins this marvelously constructed and engrossing tale.

Very exciting adventure story. A search for 2 missing Vets sets off a chain reaction - lots of deaths (are they murders or something else?).

This book is none stop suspense. People are being murdered, but their deaths are made to look like accidents. Gillian Coats is a Phych nurse. Her sister Belle, an ICU nurse has died and her death was ruled a suicide. But Gillian believes she was really murdered. Dr. Nick Garrity is a vet suffering from PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder)dispenses medical treatment from a mobile clinic to the homeless in D.C. and Baltimore. He also looking into the disappearance of his friend, Umberto Vasquez who has reportedly disappeared four years before after joining a secret military mission. Gillian finds a clue that connects her sister with Nick, so she finds him and together they discover that patients are dying in the operating room and their is a connection between some of them. Franz Koller, a highly paid master of the "non-kill" art of murder that doesn't look like murder, has a new agenda. To see that Gillian and Nick are dead. It's fast paced, full of suspense and at times very gory, and I loved all of it. The only part that I wasn't crazy about were the sex scenes. They were too descriptive and strange, but I had no problem skipping those parts and going on to what I love most, the suspense of finding out how the story ends. Anyone who loves a fast paced suspense filled book will surely love The Last Surgeon. If you're like me and don't like all the sex scenes, just skip over them. This book was quite a thrilling ride!!!

In "Last Surgeon," Michael Palmer tells the story of Nick Garrity, a trauma surgeon suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, otherwise known as PTSD. Following the horrific events of 9/11, Garrity volunteers to serve in Afghanistan, only to nearly lose his life in the process--when a trusted local running a medical clinic orchestrates an explosion that takes the life of many Americans, including Garrity's fiancée Sarah. The only ones to survive this tragedy are Nick Garrity and staff sergeant Umberto Vasquez, who miraculously saves Nick's life. Fast forward years later and life is never the same. Garrity quits his private practice, teams up with a cheerful nurse called Junie, and starts running a mobile charity clinic called Helping Hands, giving medical treatments to the poor and the homeless in the Baltimore and Washington D.C. areas, while trying to help other vets suffering from PTSD gain benefits. His peaceful life is disrupted with the arrival of nurse Jillian Coates, whose sister Belle, also a practicing nurse, dies in suspicious circumstances. Her death is made to look like suicide--a simple overdose of sleeping pills, but Jillian believes otherwise. She sees a suspicious stack of comic books hidden in Belle's apartment, all focused on the character Nick Fury. Jillian locates Dr. Nick Garrity, when she finds out that Nick Fury was his military nickname and suspects Belle's death is somehow related to him. Meanwhile, Nick is growing concerned with the disappearance of Umberto Vasquez, who, after returning from Afghanistan, turns into an alcoholic and mysteriously disappears after agreeing to take on a special military mission. Nick learns of a man called Manny Ferris, who also disappeared after agreeing to participate in a similar mission--only to re-appear, looking horribly disfigured and mentally brainwashed--unable to provide Nick with any useful information about Umberto or the mission itself. While this is taking place, Franz Koller, a hired killer who works a substitute teacher in his spare time, continues to kill various doctors who work in the same hospital as Belle. Master of the non-kill, as well as of disguises, he makes his grizzly murders look like natural deaths, while receiving handsome payments from his employer who boasts ties all the way to the White House. Trying to connect the dots between all of the above events, Nick and Jillian begin running out of time and ultimately turn into Koller's targets. Overall, I really enjoyed the plot. This is my first Palmer book, so I wasn't sure what to expect. For starters, this book is as much a mystery as a thriller. Readers are not merely led into various action sequences, but are left to piece everything together for a shocking final revelation. I also enjoyed the characters, especially Franz Koller, who is an impressive villain. The writing itself, while full of medical terminology--not surprising given Palmer's expertise in the area--adds a lot of realism to the