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Here's a fairly high-tech organ legging tale. It's rather more up-to-date than the hoary old story of the traveller who wakes up one morning feeing rather unwell and with a scar on his back that wasn't there the day before. He's missing a kidney – unless he doesn't wake up and is missing two kidneys. The prologue is more than a little depressing. Lonnie Durkin is boy with learning difficulties. He has been kidnapped and is being kept in an RV while things medical are done to him. He manages to escape and runs out into the road – only to be hit by a tractor trailer. At the post mortem, it is discovered that Lonnie, now John Doe, had been an unwitting bone marrow donor. Meanwhile, Natalie Reyes, a medical student, has been in open conflict with the surgical senior resident in the hospital where she is training. The outcome is that she is suspended, which will put her a year behind with her studies. She is a talented runner but when she is sent to Rio to present a paper, her hopes of resuming a running career are thwarted for she is kidnapped and shot, necessitating the removal of a collapsed lung. Ben Callahan is a detective. He is attempting to discover the identity of the unfortunate Lonnie Durkin but is soon hired by Dr Alice Gustafson of Organ Guard. Ben had been beaten up by one of the people who had "treated" Lonnie, as the reader discovers, but Ben is determined to learn exactly what is going on, as well as to notify Lonnie's parents of their son's death. In the background lurks a sinister group styling themselves The Guardians, a term they swiped from Plato (quotes from whose work appears at the beginning of each chapter). They know which of us mere mortals deserve to live and who must be sacrificed in order for them to do so. They are somewhat reminiscent of Lewis Carroll's Fury, who proclaimed: "I'll be judge, I'll be jury." He was also willing to perform such executions he deemed necessary. The Guardians thus decide which people receive transplants from which less deserving people who can, if necessary, be discarded after their organs are harvested. This is an interesting little volume. I always enjoy a medical thriller when the author knows whereof he speaks and, as a doctor, Michael Palmer is eminently qualified to extrapolate into what might be the near future. It's a relief not to have to be on the alert for errors which might proliferate in the non-medically trained author. The prose is simple but well composed. The author does not slow down the action by lecturing the unfortunate reader and bringing the action to a stumbling halt. The characterisation is rather well done although, at times, I felt the characters might just be becoming cartoons of themselves. The science is what I found the most attractive part of the book. It is just so possible! Yesterday, I had to pay a visit to my friendly pathologist. I must say, I looked very carefully at the lids of the vials containing my blood and was extremely relieved to see none sported a green cap.
Reviewed by Denise Pickles, November 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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