Although I come from a family with a number of medical professionals, I am not one myself. My interest in medical thrillers is a three-strand braid that combines my learning and experiences in the fields of sociology, literature, and storytelling. Horrific as the stories on this list are, they share both a hopefulness that mankind is capable of overcoming whatever challenge nature presents, or they themselves conjure and a warning to get ourselves right before the next one comes along. At a time when it is tempting to despair over the human condition, I hope these books inspire your faith in mankind’s resourcefulness and ability to endure.
My book paints a disturbing picture of the lengths to which governmental authorities might be willing to go to prevent a localized case of the bird flu virus crossover from spilling over into the general population, reluctant to instigate a socio-political fallout similar to the COVID shutdown of 2020.
Meanwhile, on Kelleys Island off the coast of Northern Ohio in Lake Erie (Island No. 6), a quarantined and increasingly desperate mixed population of full-time residents and day trippers divide into camps as they wage a losing battle against a virus that is causing them to devolve towards a brutal state of nature while it decimates their numbers with alarming speed and effectiveness.
This novel was my “love at first read” book for medical thrillers. From this novel on, I was hooked on medical thrillers.
The manner in which Crichton wove together science and literary prose in a manner that was simultaneously erudite yet comprehensible fascinated me. I felt respected as a reader.
From the author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Sphere comes a captivating thriller about a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism, which threatens to annihilate human life.
Five prominent biophysicists have warned the United States government that sterilization procedures for returning space probes may be inadequate to guarantee uncontaminated re-entry to the atmosphere. Two years later, a probe satellite falls to the earth and lands in a desolate region of northeastern Arizona. Nearby, in the town of Piedmont, bodies lie heaped and flung across the ground, faces locked in frozen surprise. What could cause such shock and fear? The terror has begun, and…
Witnessing vicariously the symptoms and death throes associated with the outbreak of the Ebola virus in Central Africa left me horrified.
The narrow margins by which such an outbreak was prevented from happening here in the States raised my awareness of the potential for a viral outbreak in my own backyard.
The bestselling landmark account of the first emergence of the Ebola virus.
Now a mini-series drama starring Julianna Margulies, Topher Grace, Liam Cunningham, James D'Arcy, and Noah Emmerich on National Geographic.
A highly infectious, deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There is no cure. In a few days 90 percent of its victims are dead. A secret military SWAT team of soldiers and scientists is mobilized to stop the outbreak of this exotic "hot" virus. The Hot Zone tells this dramatic story, giving a hair-raising account of the appearance of…
I especially love this novel as Camus applies his background in existential philosophy to elevate the medical thriller genre into the realm of the metaphysical.
I love how the novel uses the plot device of an outbreak of the plague to force me as a reader to move beyond the surface questions of “What?” “When?” and “Where?” to ask the deeper question of “Why?” and “What now?”
“Its relevance lashes you across the face.” —Stephen Metcalf, The Los Angeles Times • “A redemptive book, one that wills the reader to believe, even in a time of despair.” —Roger Lowenstein, The Washington Post
A haunting tale of human resilience and hope in the face of unrelieved horror, Albert Camus' iconic novel about an epidemic ravaging the people of a North African coastal town is a classic of twentieth-century literature.
The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation and claustrophobia follow as they…
I enjoy that this novel does not use the plague device. Rather, it explores the ramifications of the abuse of power by authorities who manipulate private citizens to be unwitting participants in medical experimentations.
Rarely are medical thrillers–especially those of the plague variety–sexy books, yet this book manages to be so, as a decrease in sexual inhibitions is a side effect of the chemical being foisted on the populace.
Returning home to the small Louisiana parish where he had praticed psychiatry, Dr. Tom More quickly notices something strange occuring with the townfolk, a loss of inhibitions. Behind this mystery is a dangerous plot drug the local water supply, and a discovery that takes More into the underside of the American search for happiness.
The most recently published on my list of medical thrillers is The Desperate Hours, which is an account from the front lines of the COVID-19 epidemic as it ravaged New York City.
This one is especially meaningful for me because my pathologist brother, Kevin, was living and working in the midst of the chaos the epidemic caused. Even more poignant for me is the fact that he is quoted in the book.
It is a harrowing account of the tragic reality of that period which, I’m afraid, too many are failing to heed its warning of the potential for even worse future plagues.
In the spring of 2020, COVID-19 arrived in New York City.
Before long, America's largest metropolis was at war against a virus that mercilessly swept through its five boroughs. It became apparent that if Covid wasn't somehow halted, the death count in New York alone would be in the hundreds of thousands. And if New York's hospitals failed, what chance did the rest of the country have?
In The Desperate Hours, award-winning journalist Marie Brenner, having been granted unprecedented 18-month access to the entire New York-Presbyterian hospital system, tells the story of the doctors, nurses, residents, researchers, and suppliers who…
When King Priam's pregnant daughter was fleeing the sack of Troy, Stan was there. When Jesus of Nazareth was beaten and crucified, Stan was there - one crossover. He’s been a Hittite warrior, a Silk Road mercenary, a reluctant rebel in the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381, and an information peddler in the cabarets of post-war Berlin. Stan doesn't die, and he doesn't know why. And now he's being investigated for a horrific crime.
As Stan tells his story, from his origins as an Anatolian sheep farmer to his custody in a Toronto police interview room, he brings a wry, anachronistic perspective to three thousand years of Western history. Call Me Stan is a Biblical epic from the bleachers, a gender fluid operatic love quadrangle, and a touching exploration of what it is to outlive everyone you love.
When King Priam's pregnant daughter was fleeing the sack of Troy, Stan was there. When Jesus of Nazareth was beaten and crucified, Stan was there - one cross over. Stan has been a Hittite warrior, a Roman legionnaire, a mercenary for the caravans of the Silk Road and a Great War German grunt. He’s been a toymaker in a time of plague, a reluctant rebel in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, and an information peddler in the cabarets of post-war Berlin. Stan doesn't die, and he doesn't know why. And now he's…
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