Critical Conditions: An Alan Gregory Thriller - Softcover

White, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451191706 ISBN 13: 9780451191700

Publisher: Berkley, 1999

Synopsis

From New York Times bestselling author Stephen White comes the sixth suspense thriller featuring psychologist Dr. Alan Gregory.Summoned to the hospital to learn the motives behind a teenage girl's suicide attempt, Alan discovers that the girl's young stepsister lies near death in another hospital with a heart disease. Denied an experimental new treatment that could save her life by her parent's managed-care provider, the stepsister has become a symbol of a health care system more concerned with costs than with the lives of its patients. And when a wealthy executive of the family's HMO is found dead, Alan and Denver detective Sam Purdy uncover the truth that links the teenage girl to his death, and the truth behind a family willing to kill in the name of love...and revenge.

About this title

About the Author:

Stephen White is a clinical psychologist and New York Times bestselling author of thirteen previous novels, including The Best Revenge and Missing Persons.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Boulder psychologist Alan Gregory confronts a hapless family's mismanaged-care nightmare, in White's overstuffed sixth thriller. The toddler of Alan's newly transplanted colleague, John Trent, has been stricken with a rare strain of viral myocarditis for which MedExcel, the family's HMO, refuses the only available treatment as too experimental; meanwhile, his wife, TV news personality Brenda Strait, is being harassed by threats and vandalism. As their daughter Chaney lies dying for lack of funds, Trent wonders how much worse things could get. Here's how much: Brenda's daughter Merritt, 15, tries to kill herself, gets dragged back to life refusing to speak, and turns out to be hiding a handgun and a bloody outfit that tie her to the murder of Dr. Edward Robilio, the founder and chairman of MedExcel. Assigned to Merritt's case, Alan finds crippling new connections among the characters at every turn. His cop friend Sam Purdy is the brother-in-law Brenda's been feuding with for years. Dr. Terence Gusman, who chairs the medical exam review board at MedExcel, is the brother of a woman fatally traumatized by Brenda's hard-nosed reporting. Even Alan's urologist neighbor Adrienne, who's been sleeping with the Trent/Strait's lawyer, thinks she prefers the lawyer's wife. As he rolls like a fifth wheel from one crime scene to the next and struggles to get his mute patient to open up--even after she starts to talk, her shocking, predictable revelations are delayed by a series of shameless ploys--Alan goggles at the unholy network of lovers, codependents, and betrayers. The result is that White (Remote Control, 1997, etc.) loses his initial focus on the indictment of uncaring HMOs; by the time you stumble to the center of this labyrinth, you're amazed that the medical community can lift a finger to help this dysfunctional community. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Berkley
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0451191706
• ISBN 13: 9780451191700
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416