Medical Fiction

Here is P. T. Barnum's insightful review of humbugs, scams, deceits (and self-deceits) in culture, economics, entertainment, religion, medicine, and more.

Twenty years of addiction to cloud, a drug which wipes the user’s short-term memory, have left single mom Mellie with her mind in fragments. With the help of a tough-minded sponsor, and motivated by her own medically challenged daughter, Mellie clings to a fragile sobriety. Then, on the evening of her 29th day sober, a stranger pulls into her driveway and her heart surges. However, when Mellie’s pursuit of this man and the past they may share threatens her sponsor, Mellie will have to put her tiny family and her recovery at risk in hopes of saving the woman who saved her first.

Ellie Fisher loves most things about being a nurse in the emergency department . . . just not working with Regina Novak, an icy attending physician who acts as if she's God's gift to medicine. The dislike is completely mutual. Regina thinks Ellie is a starry-eyed romantic with a sentimental attitude that has no place at work. When Regina gets talked into volunteering at a singles auction, Ellie accidentally bids on her—and ends up winning. Oops! Since the money raised is for a good cause, they reluctantly decide to go through with the dates.

Carol Cassella, a freelance medical writer and a practicing anesthesiologist, grounds her haunting debut novel Oxygen in the life-or-death scenarios of the modern medical field. Marie Heaton's successful anesthesiology practice is derailed when a child dies under the mask. Faced with a major lawsuit, she must turn to a former lover for moral support.

If your love for someone is greater than your own life, what would you sacrifice to keep her safe? The world and everything you've worked most of your life to procure? That is CEO Carson Bradley's catch-22. Unfortunately for Carson, his rivals have discovered his only weakness - Lillian Ly, the owner of his heart. The power behind his new cancer drug is what they desire, and they will stop at nothing to seize it. If necessary, kidnapping and murder are just the means to an end.

A mysterious electrical storm plunges Manhattan into darkness. As a strange, smothering fog rolls in, all communication crashes. In the blink of an eye, the island seems to vanish into a void. FBI special agent Jessica Blackwood and brilliant scientist Dr. Theo Cray know this isn’t a freak accident. It’s a sinister sleight of hand. Their greatest adversary, a serial killer and cultist known as the Warlock, has escaped during a prison transfer in New York. A depraved master of manipulation, he promised the end of days. He’s making good on it.

In this powerful and provocative novel, Blum explores the dark and mysterious link that connects twins Charles and Karena—and how far one will go to protect the other. Karena Jorge has kept a watchful eye on her brother Charles since they were teens. But when he stops taking his medicine and his bipolar disorder worsens, she’s torn between respecting her brother’s choices and fearing for his life.

Pittsburgh police officer Kate O'Hern is on the trail of a killer targeting cops. Only problem, he's already killed her once. Trauma surgeon Joshua Lightner saved Kate's life, only to have her awaken suffering from an unexpected side effect: visions of other people's deaths. As a doctor, he refuses to believe in "psychic mumbo-jumbo", but as a man, he can't deny his feelings for Kate. When the killer targets them both, are they living on Borrowed Time?

I'm twenty-six years old, and I want to die. So when I wake up at the hospital with my brother weeping over me, I know my life is about to change. What I didn't expect was to get a nurse with cruel eyes and a morbid sense of humor that surpasses my own. I'm even more surprised when I arrive at Harlow Sanctum and realize that my brother selected an unorthodox rehabilitation center that rooms people based on their treatment plan. And my roommate is none other than the man with cruel eyes I met the day prior.

Newlyweds Tricia and Ethan are searching for the house of their dreams. But when they visit the remote manor that once belonged to Dr. Adrienne Hale, a renowned psychiatrist who vanished without a trace four years earlier, a violent winter storm traps them at the estate… with no chance of escape until the blizzard comes to an end. In search of a book to keep her entertained until the snow abates, Tricia happens upon a secret room. One that contains audio transcripts from every single patient Dr. Hale has ever interviewed.

When a top secret program of implanting harrowing memories into innocent people comes to light, neurosurgeon Tom McCarthy is literally caught in the crossfire. While McCarthy looks forward to a three day weekend, his office is suddenly raided by two Department of Defense investigators bent on arresting him for a crime he didn’t commit.

In Tokyo, Angelica Navarro, a Filipina nurse who has been working in Japan for the last five years, is the caretaker for Sayoko Itou, an intensely private woman about to turn 100 years old. Angelica is a dedicated nurse, working night and day to keep her paperwork in order, obey the strict labor laws for foreign nationals, study for her ongoing proficiency exams, and most of all keep her demanding client happy.

For 18 years Jack has been a “transplant tourism director,” sending wealthy Americans and Europeans in need of kidneys and other organs to third-world countries where they would buy them from transplant centers on the take. The death of a client and a newfound relationship lead to a crisis of conscience as he is forced to choose between a $2 million commission - and participating in a murder.

After the death of his fiancee due to medical errors, hospital pharmacist Daniel O'Dwyer escapes to Oak Island, North Carolina. The only things on his mind are fresh sea air, fresh seafood, Fat Tire Amber Ale, and the avoidance of any type of healthcare institution. But fate and jellyfish draw him back, and reluctantly, he agrees to go undercover to combat narcotic drug diversion at nearby Boiling Grove Community Hospital.

In Danielle Steel’s powerful new novel, four trauma doctors - the best and brightest in their field - confront exciting new challenges, both personally and professionally, when given an unusual opportunity. When an unspeakable act of mass violence galvanizes them into action, their temporary life in Paris becomes a stark turning point: a time to face harder choices than they have ever made before - with consequences that will last a lifetime.

When she’s incarcerated under the authority of a shadowy new defense act, Riley is sent to one of a growing number of American Renewal Centers (ARCs)—institutions modeled after psychiatric facilities—for mandatory reeducation. Forced therapy, involuntary medication, solitary confinement, restricted rations, and more are all in the ARC program’s bag of dirty tricks designed to break down dissidents. Give in, and you go free. Resist, and … Riley declares a one-woman war against the gaslighting and manipulation in a struggle to take down the ARC program and its white-coated collaborators.

Three men are found dead in the locked second floor office of a Honolulu building, with no sign of struggle except ultra-fine, razor-sharp cuts covering their bodies. The only clue left behind is a tiny bladed robot, nearly unrecognizable to the human eye.

Hey, baby, Debbie and Edwina aren’t likely to thank anybody very much when a despicable sneak thief pilfers Elvis Presley’s blue suede shoes—the main exhibit at a Salt Lick, Texas, festival for the King. But with everyone’s favorite Southern detectives on the case, the proceedings are likely to be as tasty as a bacon, banana, and peanut-butter sandwich.

The year is 1796, and a trading ship arrives in the vibrant trading town of Newburyport, Massachusetts. But it's a ghost ship - her entire crew has been decimated by a virulent fever which sweeps through the harbor town, and Newburyport's residents start to fall ill and die with alarming haste. Something has to be done to stop the virus from spreading further.

There is not much left of the irascible Albert Evan Jasper, "dean of American forensic anthropologists," after his demise in a fiery car crash. But in accord with his wishes, his remains are installed in an Oregon museum to create a fascinating if macabre exhibit. All agree that it is a fitting end for a great forensic scientist - until what is left of him disappears in the midst of the biannual meeting of the august WAFA - the Western Association of Forensic Anthropologists - in nearby Bend, Oregon. Like his fellow attendees, Gideon Oliver - the Skeleton Detective - is baffled.