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Critics' Opinion:
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First Published:
Feb 2006, 400 pages
Paperback:
Jan 2007, 624 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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Straight out of today's hospitals and labs, and tomorrow's headlines, comes a frightening, scalpel-sharp debut medical thriller. In an astounding debut, Spanogle takes us on an all-too-real race against time - as a young doctor enters the dark side of scientific research, desperate to stop a terrifying epidemic before it is too late.
Straight out of
today's hospitals and labs – and tomorrow's headlines – comes a frightening,
scalpel-sharp thriller from medical insider Joshua Spanogle. In an astounding
debut, Spanogle takes us on an all-too-real race against time…as a young doctor
enters the dark side of scientific research, desperate to stop a terrifying
epidemic before it is too late….
In Baltimore's St. Raphael's Hospital, three newly admitted patients are among
society's most helpless citizens: female residents of Baltimore's group homes
for the mentally impaired, their bodies racked by a virus the likes of which no
one at St. Raphael's has ever seen.
Dr. Nathaniel McCormick is one of the first on the scene. A young investigator
from the Centers for Disease Control, Nate is paid to explore the bizarre, the
exotic, and the baffling–from superviruses to bioterrorism. But as soon as Nate
begins to investigate the lives and habits of the victims, he knows something is
terribly wrong. Using all his skills as a medical detective, Nate soon zeroes in
on the "vector"–the one person who had sexual contact with the first victims.
And when that suspect is found murdered, Nate fears that the disease he's
chasing may not be an act of nature, but of man.
With his brash style angering his superiors and fellow investigators alike, Nate
turns to an old colleague and former lover, Dr. Brooke Michaels, for help.
Together the two investigators follow a twisting trail of clues to a discovery
that is at once groundbreaking and unspeakable. And as a circle of treachery
tightens around him, Nate is about to confront the most chilling revelation of
all–and a past Nate himself has been trying to escape.
At once a taut medical thriller and a riveting psychological portrait of a young
doctor on the edge, Isolation Ward is a tale of runaway tension–with a brilliant
"what-if" premise that is harrowing…heartbreaking…and impossible to wrench from
your imagination.
Chapter 1
St. Raphael's was an old Catholic hospital, struggling to maintain its independence in the face of overtures--friendly and outright aggressive--from Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland. The hospital sat in the middle of a decayed neighborhood in the southwestern quadrant of the city, surrounded to the north and west by housing projects and to the south and east by a mix of old factories and abandoned row homes. The hospital served the needy in the immediate area, but extended its reach to the working-class neighborhoods of Pigtown and Locust Point. The last I heard, it was hemorrhaging money and talks with Hopkins and Maryland had started up again, this time at St. Raphe's behest. The former belle at the ball, now trying to dance with anyone who'd have her. Rumor had it the powers that be--admin at St. Raphe's, the Catholic ...
The action moves at fever pitch, with beautiful women, a really, really nasty villain, lots of medical lingo and liberal amounts of gratuitous violence from which our protagonist recovers with miraculous speed. Medical thriller aficionados wake up - there's a new player in town!..continued
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Dr. Nathaniel (Nate) McCormick, the hero of Isolation Ward , describes himself as "an officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service, a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...part of the Special Pathogens Branch, which is in the Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases".
Does such an organization exist? Absolutely!
The Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) was established in 1951 following the start of the Korean War as an early warning system against biological warfare and man-made epidemics. Today, it has expanded into a surveillance and response unit for all types of epidemics, including chronic disease and injuries.The Special Pathogens Branch, part of The Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases, deals with some of ...
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