{"id":1392,"date":"2014-06-28T18:20:57","date_gmt":"2014-06-29T00:20:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=1392"},"modified":"2014-06-28T18:20:57","modified_gmt":"2014-06-29T00:20:57","slug":"michael-palmer-resistant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/michael-palmer-resistant\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Palmer: Resistant"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Resistant\"<\/a>Michael Palmer, one of my very favorite guilty pleasure writers, unfortunately passed away last winter, and I can\u2019t tell you how much I will miss his books. This one joins a fledgling series featuring Dr. Lou Welcome, coming after a long string of successful stand-alones. Stand-alone or series, Palmer\u2019s formula rarely varied and it\u2019s so crazy enjoyable I had a hard time putting any of his books down. There\u2019s always a misunderstood doc at the center of the action, oppressed by whatever evil force Palmer came up with for a particular book, and the odds are always stacked against the doc. (Also, a clue: whenever another character calls him \u201cdoc,\u201d that character is to be trusted).<\/p>\n

In this novel, Dr. Lou Welcome, a recovered addict who now works with other doctors in recovery, is on a work junket. His boss\u2019 wife is in the hospital and he\u2019s been elected to take over and give a speech for his boss. Lou has brought his best friend (and AA sponsor) Cap along for the trip, a trip that begins each day with a rigorous trail run. Cap runs a boxing gym and is always pushing Lou to work harder.<\/p>\n

On one of the mornings Lou is lucky enough to get a tour of the CDC (Center for Disease Control) as part of his trip and he gets a front row view of all the nasty bacteria being fought by the scientists at the CDC. The book has an opening segment with a young woman fighting off just such a bacteria, and, not being a Palmer newbie, I knew she was toast (I was right). This serves Palmer\u2019s purpose though: it made me invested in the outcome.<\/p>\n

Then the unforeseeable happens \u2013 Cap and Lou are out for a run and a terrible accident shatters Cap\u2019s leg. It\u2019s not a difficult leap to figure that Cap will get infected with the very same bacteria that killed the girl, putting Lou in a race against the clock. His foe, though he doesn\u2019t know it, is a group called the 100 Neighbors, who are trying to bring down what they feel in an unnecessary government by any means, including the spread of a deadly virus that only they can cure. Unfortunately the virus has mutated and spread a little more quickly than they had planned, with no cure in sight.<\/p>\n

The various characters and paths it takes for Lou to come to the rescue are both imaginative and entertaining. Palmer\u2019s narrative genius is a combination of compelling characters and impossible situations, with a very real medical knowledge behind his writing. Michael Palmer was in real life a doctor and recovered addict, and he brought those things to bear on his writing. From all I can tell his death was a loss in every way to both the mystery community, to his family, and to the world in general. I am very grateful for his books and hope they will continue to enjoy a lengthy shelf life. (Michael Palmer, Oct. 1942-Oct. 2013).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Palmer, one of my very favorite guilty pleasure writers, unfortunately passed away last winter, and I can\u2019t tell you how much I will miss his books. This one joins a fledgling series featuring Dr. Lou Welcome, coming after a long string of successful stand-alones. Stand-alone or series, Palmer\u2019s formula rarely varied and it\u2019s so … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-1392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-suspensethriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1394,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1392\/revisions\/1394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}