Thea Sperelakis has returned home to Boston from her latest assignment in the Congo for Doctors Without Borders. Her father, Petros, also a physician and medical director of the Sperelakis Institute, lies comatose as a result of a car accident. Although Petros apparently has locked-in syndrome and can communicate with her only by blinking an eye, Thea soon suspects that the crash was no accident. Her twin siblings, Niko and Selene, who are also doctors, never see such communications from their father and believe that he should just be allowed to die peacefully. However, older brother Dimitri, a reclusive computer programmer, is also convinced someone tried to kill their father. With help from ex-policeman and hospital security guard Dan Cotton and wealthy patient Hayley Long, Thea must overcome the limitations of her Asperger's syndrome to uncover the conspiracy behind the attempt on her father's life. Physician Palmer's 14th medical thriller (after The First Patient) puts the attractive and capable Thea in various kinds of peril before the surprising resolution. Buy anywhere Robin Cook and other medical thriller authors are popular. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/08.].—A.J. Wright, Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham Lib.

In this routine medical thriller from bestseller Palmer (The First Patient), Dr. Thea Sperelakis, an idealist who's been working for Doctors Without Borders in the Congo, rushes back to Boston after learning her physician father, Petros, an intimidating figure known as the Lion, is close to death, the victim of a hit-and-run. Thea faces one challenge after another, including having to resuscitate Petros when his heart stops beating. Her brilliant if socially challenged older brother, Dimitri, adds to her anxiety with his computer reconstruction of the accident, which indicates the driver struck Petros deliberately. When Thea manages to communicate haltingly with her father, she suspects he's stumbled on some medical fraud that's made him the target of those behind the fraud. Aided by the requisite hunky ex-cop turned hospital security guard, Thea doggedly seeks out the truth. Robin Cook fans have seen all this before and in more engaging form. (Feb.)