Need a fix while you’re waiting for Robin Cook to release his next medical thriller? Why not give Michael Palmer, Cook’s contemporary and former classmate, a read.Though he lacks Cook’s global acclaim, Palmer released his twelfth medical thriller this year with The Fifth Vial, a suspense-filled look at the grisly world of underground organ donation. In the novel, we are introduced to three seemingly unrelated characters—Natalie Reyes, a former Olympic runner and Harvard Med student who is attacked and left for dead in Rio de Janeiro where she is scheduled to present a conference paper, Ben Callahan, a private detective hired by Organ Guard International to investigate an underground organ donation ring, and Dr. Joe Anson, a medical researcher in Cameroon who is racing against the clock to perfect a drug that speeds the formation of new blood vessels while his own health declines rapidly. All three are drawn together by their interest in the Whitestone Foundation, which is actually a front for a vicious illegal organ donation ring known as the Guardians. A few plot twists and cold sweats later, the three are united by an ending that is not only satisfying, but also a great wake-up call to this important real-world issue.Writing is only a part-time job for Michael Palmer, M.D., who also works for the Massachusetts Medical Society as Associate Director of their physician health program, which offers help to doctors afflicted by physical or mental illnesses. As to how this doc came to be a writer, he apparently has much to owe to fellow Wesleyan University pre-med alum Cook. According to his website (www.michaelpalmerbooks.com), after the 1978 release of Cook’s Coma, Palmer asked his younger sister, “If Robin can write a book and has the same education as I do, why can’t I write a book?” In a typical younger sibling response she replied, “Because you’re dull.”Since then, Palmer has added enough stellar writing credits to his name to prove little sis wrong, especially in The Fifth Vial, decidedly his most harrowing medical tale to date.
I cannot believe the stupidity of this book. Talk of unbelievable, totally. Plus amazingly a good number of medical stupidities I certainly did not expect, like being O+ makes a transplant more difficult. As 1/3 of the population is O+, it cannot be a big problem. Talk of being AB-, hat would be much more complicated.I'm discovering Michael Palmer, read Resistant, the First Patient and Trauma. The three of them were okay. But this one?Add to the (many) plot holes the pages spent on blaming smoking for anything and the weirdness of Nat's mother, who has smoked for 40 years to get her house burning from a cigarette butt...complete it with the declawed ct of the detective -did not Palmer know it is like cutting fingers from human being? Declawing is horrible. Think of you with finger stumps, it is the same for the cat you declawed.I don't know much about democracy in Brazil. I know in the sixties, the US managed to get the military govern for a while, but since then, I have not heard of any problems. According to Palmer, though, Brazil is still a place where corrupted cops rule everything and illegal money can be obtained from drugs, or transplants, or many other things, all done in the open. Believable? not for a minute! Set the story 50 years back, maybe, bu not today, in our internet and webcams world where everything is so visible and cannot be deleted anymore.
What do You think about The Fifth Vial (2007)?
Being an appreciator of medical thrillers, I have read Michael Palmer in some distant past. On holidays I stumbled upon The Fifth Vial and I am very glad that I did.The story is intelligent and the medical science behind illegal organ harvesting is mostly believable. It sets a good pace without getting confusing. There are some great plot twists, keeping me alert and thinking ‘what happens next?’.There are three viewpoint characters: Natalie Reyes (former top athlete turned medical student), Ben Callahan (private investigator) and Joe Anson (doctor doing research in some jungle). I found Natalie a bit annoying at times, because she’s too headstrong, and the character changes she goes through are pretty far-fetched. But Ben is a great character, very likeable.I did have an issue with the ending, which I found a bit disappointing.
—Helle
We hope it's fiction - perish the thought that it might not be.The title refers to a fifth vial of blood samples taken for tissue/allogen matching for transplantation. When Natalie Reyes, a dismissed medical student, is sent to Rio to give a paper for her mentor, she is kidnapped, "shot," and a "Jane Doe" in an ICU missing a lung which she was told was removed because it was so badly infected.At first I was disconcerted by all the jumping around to different countries and characters, but it does all tie together nicely, and makes for one heck of a story.
—Sandra
Meh, this was a totally servicable medical thriller. It was not at all well-written, and the plot was tied up a little too neatly for my tastes, but it passed several hours of sitting around the airport, and for that I am grateful.It was strange that the whole book was about illegal organ trafficking, and then the afterword was mostly about how important organ donation is (rather than about the realities of organ trafficking). I get that the author is more likely to get a reader to change their organ donor status than to get readers involved in the fight against the illegal organ trade, so it's a practical use of his afterword. But then why not have some legal organ donation in the plotline? I didn't exactly come away from his story thinking "wow, I should make sure and donate my organs," which I don't think should have been too hard a reaction to invoke in me, if that was really the author's goal.
—jill
