The Society [Paperback]

We have enjoyed most of Michael Palmer's medical thrillers, finding them to be entertaining stories with realistic premises about dangers to us all that could happen in the field of doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutics. His latest novel, "The Society", has it all: villainous rich men guiding HMO's to make money against all standards of decency toward their patients; an innocent doctor, who protests against HMO's by night, gets drugged before doing surgery by day (?); and a young female homicide investigator anxious to stand on her own two feet (not on her cop father's laurels) in an immensely sexist police department. Toss in some blood-chilling action, including torture and near death to both our heroes, and this busy storyline will keep you turning pages quickly to see who the bad guys really are and whether our leading man and lady will not only survive, but get to consummate a growing love interest.

As with Dr. Robin Cook's tales, we feel Palmer is on more solid ground when describing the problems the docs face and telling us what really happens in the field than he is when moving people about and using guns and generally outwitting or outrunning guys who kill for fun and profit. While we have to suspend reality a little to believe the otherwise terrifying circumstances near the book's end, the stories about HMO abuse are only too real, as Palmer recruited all of those from true-life examples of readers of his web site. A somewhat overly righteous call for a socialized medicine scheme similar to Canada's was hardly fleshed out enough to warrant the mention that it got -- we hear too many stories of Canadians crossing the line to get "real" care to just swallow that one wholeheartedly. Nonetheless, Palmer has crafted yet another in his provocative line of thrillers -- one sure to wow both his fan club and the average reader alike. Enjoy!

I have been waiting for this book for ages. A while back, I just so happened to stumble upon a Micheal Palmer book, and after devouring it, I eagerly lept from book to book, finding each one a very enjoyable (though often predictable) read. This book, I waited a while for the hardback edition and, not liking hardbacks, waited even longer for the paperback. I must admit, I am not all the way finished with this book. It may get better still. But being almost 400 pages into a 480 page book gives me enough of an insight to write a review.

This book is hard to get through. The last 100 pages have picked up, but the first couple hundered pages were kinda painful. The characters are fairly unlikeable. I don't feel any sort of connection to any of them, I'm not rooting for them, and I definitely don't feel any chemistry between Will and Patty. There are also a few more characters than usual, and I feel that Palmer, in an attempt to broaden his story arc, ended up hurting himself. There were so many characters, he didn't really take too much time with any of them. (the possible exception being, in my opinion, the Davenport widow)

As other reviewers have said, his plots appear to be more cut and paste all the time. Insert name, insert town (if it happens to be one of the few outside of White Memorial), and use the same story as the last one. But I can deal with that.

This book, however, fell short of it's mark...at least in my opinion. I will finish it, out of deference to my esteem for his previous books, rubbernecking, whatever. But I may pay a little more attention to reviews of the next one.

Michael Palmer's latest medical thriller, The Society, is about the managed care industry (HMOs), and the medical profession's ongoing opposition to them.

Dr. Will Grant is a workaholic. He works almost eighty hours a week as a surgeon and an ER doctor at his hospital. He does this to make ends meet, having to pay child support for his twins (a boy and a girl), whom he adores and alimony to their mother and his ex-wife, Maxine. Despite this drain on his time and finances, Will manages to support his pet projects, a mission style soup kitchen for the poor and homeless called the Open Hearth Kitchen and The Hippocrates Society, a collection of various medical practitioners who have banded together the counter the creeping influence of the dreaded heath management organizations.

All in all, Will, who is widely respected in his field and admired for his sensitivity for his patient's welfare, has a pretty normal and uneventful life. That is until he is cajoled into representing the Society, as a last minute replacement, in a scheduled debate with Boyd Halliday, the CEO of a large and growing HMO, Excelsis Health Care. From then on his life seems to unravel. First he meets an attractive plain clothes police officer, Patty Moriarity, who is investigating a series of homicides of CEOs of three HMOs believed to be the work of a disgruntled patient or relative. At first Moriarity is attracted to Will but after she checks up on him she thinks he may possibly be involved in the murders. Then the killer calls him on his private number, congratulating Will on his skill in the debate. Then the ceiling caves in when he passes out, literally head first, into the patient's newly opened incision during surgery.

Will wakes up in intensive care and everybody is very cool to him. When his Doctor, an old friend, comes in, he tells Will that he tested positive for a massive dose of Fantanyl, an extremely dangerous and addictive drug. Will of course, is incredulous but he and nobody else can think of how it could have been administered to him. He knows he didn't do it but it seems all his co-workers and most of his friends have made up their mind, in fact his medical license is suspended and he's banned from the hospital.

As the story continues Will becomes the murder suspect for the serial killings, though he's never charged. He has become entangled in the web of intrigue surrounding the murders and he and Moriarity wind up fighting for their very lives.

Conclusion

I have read four or five novels by Michael Palmer and have enjoyed each one. The Society was not the best one but it was a very good medical thriller that had me flipping them pages. Palmer's writing style is very smooth, with just a touch of humor. He does a good job of writing his novels without going into Doctor speak but occasionally he does go into his physician mode, whereas I have a little trouble understanding but this is minimal and I simply nod my head and go on.

The story was well written and flowed well. There was always something happening in this fast moving, fast reading novel, which made it impossible for the story to become boring. Palmer developed the characters well and you really empathized with the protagonist, Will Grant. There were several antagonists of varying degrees to dilike as well. One was Detective Brasco, an obvious chauvinist, who was in charge of the investigation, who was full of himself but couldn't seem to get out of his way. At one point approaching the end of the book Moriarity saves his life and almost gets killed herself. That was the last we heard of Brasco and I would liked to have seen some sort of resolution between he and Moriarity but it was not to be.

If you like medical thrillers then this is right up your alley. Nobody, except maybe Robin Cook, does them better. Final rating 4.3 stars