Fiction Addict

Genre: Medical Thriller

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Publication date: February 17, 2009

Reviewed by Jeremy Taylor

It might be your worst nightmare: you wake up from a terrible accident to discover that you are fully cognizant yet utterly unable to move your arms, legs, head, vocal cords, or even eyes. Effectively cut off from the world, you have no way of communicating. All your visitors assume you’re in a coma, but you can hear and understand their conversations and even see them talking about you. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

Michael Palmer’s latest medical thriller addresses some of the medical, legal, and ethical issues related to what doctors call “locked-in syndrome” through the eyes of the patient’s daughter, a doctor who, in a fascinating character twist, suffers from Asperger Syndrome. Like a female version of TV’s Dr. Gregory House, Thea Sperelakis is a brilliant physician who struggles in social situations because of her lack of mental or verbal filters. She says exactly what she’s thinking—all the time. And with her father, a world-renowned internist, trapped inside his disabled body, she has a lot to think about. Including what really might have happened to him and who might have a motive to do away with him once and for all. As clues and suspicions stack up, Thea realizes that her father’s life is not the only one in danger. And in the end, as with all good mysteries, the real threats come from the least expected source.

The Second Opinion is interesting and suspenseful—a good combination for a medical thriller. The character intrigue of a protagonist with a form of high-functioning Autism is fascinating, though the author admits in an afterword that some of Thea’s interactions may not be terribly plausible. Still, it’s unconventional enough to keep the reader’s guessing, and the story is a good one, with just the right combination of medical terminology, conspiracy, and hospital politics. The book contains some inexplicit sexual content and a bit of language, but nothing unacceptable for this genre. Fans of Palmer’s previous books or of TV shows like House and Gray’s Anatomy will find this a welcome prescription for combating literary malaise.