Almost Like New, incl. DJ Condition: Very Good
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Not His Best I love Michael Palmer's books but this one is so full of liberal bias it's hard to read.
A great read! Riveting and believable, The First Patient is one of Michael Palmer's best novels. Hoping that I could learn from Palmer, I stopped work on my own book to read The First Patient. In fact, I stopped work on a lot of chores, with dishes and clothes piling up as I neared the finish. But as usual with all of Palmer's book, I turned the last page knowing will miss his characters. That to me is the sign of a good read.
If you like being entertained while you learn, about politics, medicine, and the criminal mind, this is your book.What if the President was Mad? Dr. Gabe Singleton is sitting in the saddle on his Wyoming spread when Marine One puts down. President Andrew Stoddard has come a calling. His personal physician is missing, he needs someone he can trust to take over and who better than his old college pal. Gabe has reservations, but President Stoddard is persuasive and Gabe accepts.
But a couple days latter, just before a state dinner, Gabe is called to the Residence. The president is having an episode. He appears stark raving mad. After the episode passes, Stoddard begs Gabe to keep quiet about his problem for the good of the country. He wants Gabe to find out what's causing his episodes and Gabe agrees.
But Gabe wants to get to the bottom of why the president's doctor has vanished, so he starts to investigate. Also someone tries to kill Gabe, not once, but twice. Does someone fear Gabe is getting to close? And if so, too close to what? And who can Gabe trust? Nobody it appears.
I will admit at first I found Mr. Palmer's story a bit farfetched. The stuff of this book could never happen, but as I read on I started to think, well maybe. It wasn't long before I was caught in a high power web of lies and deceit. Somebody very close to the President of the United States wants him out of the way and it appears he is very powerful, a man or men with unlimited resources. Someone who will stop at nothing and there is only on person who stands between him and what he wants, country doctor turned investigator Gabe Singleton.
This is Michael Palmer's best book and surprisingly when I finished, I didn't find it so farfetched after all and that's scary.
Review submitted by Captain Katie OsborneAnother Interesting Take On Technology Missused Gabe is a small time doctor working in Wyoming when he gets summoned to the White House by his long-time friend Drew, who just happens to be the President. It seems that Drew's personal physician(Jim) has mysteriously disappeared and being so close to the election, he wants Gabe to take care of him. Gabe thinks this will be a short-term favor and he will be able to return home soon. When he gets there he finds out that a lot of people are keeping secrets and that the President is being besieged by mysterious attacks where he appears to go through mental seizures.
Add to this, someone appears to be trying to kill Gabe, while the author gives us hints that Jim is still alive and on the run from possibly the same killer.
The book draws some similarities in the characters from the last entry by Michael Palmer (The Fifth Vial) also, in things that happen to characters such as torture.
The book explore what can go wrong with a new technology if it is used the wrong way (remember Michael Crichtons "Prey"). The technology explored is used today by several SciFi writers such a Robert J. Sawyer.
The book held me from the start and is well written. I didn't give it a full five stars because when the reasons for everything are explained at the end I felt that the explainations were improbable.Improbable Technology and Improbable Responses I never liked Inspector Cloiseau movies because I don't find bumbling fools humorous and I cannot believe they solve cases. In First Patient we have four bumbling fools: two successive President's physicians, a nurse/undercover Secret Service agent, and the President himself. In almost every situation that calls for clearheadedness and logical thinking, they act based on sex hormones or emotions. In every situation where they should have reported information, they kept it to themselves. With four partially informed, emotionally-driven good guys in the story,
the bad guys got to keep being bad. If the good guys had been smart, First Patient would have been a short story instead of a novel.
The other annoying factor was that the medical and scientific technology was unrealistic. Nanomolecules are one thing, but nanomolecules that can hold a buckyball filled with drugs, get through the lungs and into the circulatory system, pass through the blood-brain barrier, attach to a specific type of neuron in a specific part of the brain, and then release the drugs in response to a radio signal are just not possible.
There are other annoyances and idiocies in this novel. I found it totally unbelievable that after the President's physician knew that the President was being drugged, nothing was done. They didn't collect all the President's candies, snacks, pills, syrups, ointments, soaps, shampoos, deodorants, colognes, shaving foam, and (mild spoiler here) asthma inhalers for thorough examination and replacement with safe products. I also would have checked his clothes, towels, and linens. If the President's docs didn't know this, they should have consulted a poisoning expert.
The many low probability events throughout this book make it unbelievable and frustrating to read.
