-
Access Our
Most Anticipated
Books of 2025!
Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Book Reviewed by:Straight out of today's hospitals and labs, and tomorrow's headlines, comes a frightening, scalpel-sharp debut medical thriller. In an astounding debut, Spanogle takes us on an all-too-real race against time - as a young doctor enters the dark side of scientific research, desperate to stop a terrifying epidemic before it is too late.
Straight out of
today's hospitals and labs – and tomorrow's headlines – comes a frightening,
scalpel-sharp thriller from medical insider Joshua Spanogle. In an astounding
debut, Spanogle takes us on an all-too-real race against time…as a young doctor
enters the dark side of scientific research, desperate to stop a terrifying
epidemic before it is too late….
In Baltimore's St. Raphael's Hospital, three newly admitted patients are among
society's most helpless citizens: female residents of Baltimore's group homes
for the mentally impaired, their bodies racked by a virus the likes of which no
one at St. Raphael's has ever seen.
Dr. Nathaniel McCormick is one of the first on the scene. A young investigator
from the Centers for Disease Control, Nate is paid to explore the bizarre, the
exotic, and the baffling–from superviruses to bioterrorism. But as soon as Nate
begins to investigate the lives and habits of the victims, he knows something is
terribly wrong. Using all his skills as a medical detective, Nate soon zeroes in
on the "vector"–the one person who had sexual contact with the first victims.
And when that suspect is found murdered, Nate fears that the disease he's
chasing may not be an act of nature, but of man.
With his brash style angering his superiors and fellow investigators alike, Nate
turns to an old colleague and former lover, Dr. Brooke Michaels, for help.
Together the two investigators follow a twisting trail of clues to a discovery
that is at once groundbreaking and unspeakable. And as a circle of treachery
tightens around him, Nate is about to confront the most chilling revelation of
all–and a past Nate himself has been trying to escape.
At once a taut medical thriller and a riveting psychological portrait of a young
doctor on the edge, Isolation Ward is a tale of runaway tension–with a brilliant
"what-if" premise that is harrowing…heartbreaking…and impossible to wrench from
your imagination.
The action moves at fever pitch, with beautiful women, a really, really nasty villain, lots of medical lingo and liberal amounts of gratuitous violence from which our protagonist recovers with miraculous speed. Medical thriller aficionados wake up - there's a new player in town!..continued
Full Review
(261 words)
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access,
become a member today.
(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Dr. Nathaniel (Nate) McCormick, the hero of Isolation Ward , describes himself as "an officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service, a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...part of the Special Pathogens Branch, which is in the Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases".
Does such an organization exist? Absolutely!
The Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) was established in 1951 following the start of the Korean War as an early warning system against biological warfare and man-made epidemics. Today, it has expanded into a surveillance and response unit for all types of epidemics, including chronic disease and injuries.The Special Pathogens Branch, part of The Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases, deals with some of ...
This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
If you liked Isolation Ward, try these:
by Steven Hatch
Published 2017
A physician's memoir about the ravages of a terrible disease and the small hospital that fought to contain it, Inferno is also an explanation of the science and biology of Ebola: how it is transmitted and spreads with such ferocity.
by Carla Buckley
Published 2011
How far would you go to protect your family?
Carla Buckley’s poignant debut raises important questions to which there are no easy answers, in an emotionally riveting tale of one family facing unimaginable stress.
It is among the commonplaces of education that we often first cut off the living root and then try to replace its ...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
