Resistant--A Novel

March 17, 2014
Members of a secret group founded in the early 1940s, the Society of One Hundred Neighbors, believe that entitlements begun under F.D.R. are dooming the U.S. to bankruptcy and moral decay in the less-than-convincing third Dr. Lou Welcome thriller (after 2013’s Political Suicide) from bestseller Palmer, who died in 2013. Readers soon learn that the society was behind the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993—and that its goal was the “erosion of the public’s confidence in the head of the House Armed Services Committee that would lead to his resignation.” The Neighbors have now set their sights higher. They intend to use a devastating new strain of bacteria completely resistant to any known treatment to extort an end to New Deal policies like Social Security. Saving the world comes down to an unlikely pair of heroes—an FBI agent who survived a shot to the head, and Welcome, who has struggled with alcohol and amphetamine dependence. Characters’ reactions to events are often as unbelievable as the events themselves. 125,000-copy first printing. Agent: Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen Agency.

April 15, 2014
A physician races the clock and a ferocious disease to save a friend's life. Lou Welcome, a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, is a part-time emergency room doctor and the assistant director of the Physician Wellness Office, an institution that helps doctors with psychological and substance abuse problems. When Lou's boss at PWO sends him to Georgia to give a speech, Lou invites his friend and sponsor Hank "Cap" Duncan, a former wrestler, to come along and enjoy the outdoors. While they're out trail running, Cap slips and takes a terrible fall. Lou's determined rescue gets Cap to the hospital in time, and his friend seems to be healing nicely until he contracts a hospital-borne infection that starts eating up his flesh. The new strain, which the press calls the Doomsday Germ, is resistant to antibiotics. As Lou learns from Humphrey Miller, whose brilliant scientific mind is trapped in a disabled body, the germ is the work of a fringe organization called the Society of One Hundred Neighbors. To force the government to end entitlement programs, the Neighbors have cultivated the Doomsday Germ, which has now mutated beyond their ability to control it, and they've kidnapped a top government scientist to come up with an antidote. Frantic to save Cap's life, Lou agrees to work with Miller in a secret underground lab, only to be pulled even more deeply into a fanatical plan that tests his physical strength and moral courage in this fast-paced but sometimes far-fetched medical thriller. Palmer (Political Suicide, 2012, etc.) doesn't spend much time developing female characters. But in the doctor hero's latest adventure, he's tender as well as tough, and you have to cheer him on in his fight to save the friend who helped save him.

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Starred review from April 1, 2014

Palmer, the master of medical suspense, captivates readers with his 20th and final stunning thriller. Dr. Lou Welcome, a recovering drug and alcohol addict with extensive experience in emergency medicine, and Cap Duncan, his longtime friend and former AA sponsor, attend a medical conference in Atlanta. While trail running, Cap slips and sustains a compound fracture of his femur. Although he is taken to the hospital, his gash soon becomes infected with a flesh-eating bacteria. Welcome discovers that a terrorist group has unleashed a "Doomsday Germ," which they hoped to contain by infecting individuals they alone selected. However, the bacteria has became more potent--resisting all antibiotics and contaminating numerous patients. Hoping to find a cure, the terrorists kidnap Dr. Nazar Farooq, a noted infectious disease specialist. Meanwhile, Lou meets Humphrey Miller, a self-trained microbiologist who urges Lou to treat the bacteria with a controversial, germ-eating microorganism. VERDICT This exciting, fast-paced thriller culminates a successful writing career for Palmer, who, in October 2013, died unexpectedly at age 71. Palmer drew upon his own extensive expertise in emergency medicine for such best-selling novels as Extreme Measures and The First Patient. [125,000-copy first printing.]--Jerry P. Miller. Cambridge, MA

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2014
Dr. Lou Welcome is a fine Boston emergency-room physician who also happens to be a recovering addict. He is asked to cover for his boss at a medical conference in Atlanta, and takes his best friend, Cap, along. While out trail running, Cap severely injures his leg on a slippery slope; Lou manages to get him to the hospital, but that's just the beginning of Cap's problems. He picks up a new bug, nicknamed the Doomsday Germ by the press, while hospitalized. Turns out a right-wing domestic terrorist group created the germ, which they had planned on using to blackmail the U.S. government into shutting down all entitlement programs. But the flesh-eating bacteria grew out of control and became completely resistant to all known treatments, including the cure the terrorists thought they possessed. Even the Center for Disease Control is stumped. The FBI gets involved, and the race between the government and the terrorists to find a cure is on. Medical-thriller fans of all stripes will find much to enjoy here. Unfortunately, the author died in late 2013; whether there are any more books in the pipeline is anyone's guess.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)