{"id":880,"date":"2012-12-28T21:22:49","date_gmt":"2012-12-29T03:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=880"},"modified":"2017-03-29T19:16:35","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T02:16:35","slug":"michael-palmer-political-suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/michael-palmer-political-suicide\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Palmer: Political Suicide"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019m immune to John Sandford and James Patterson, but I\u2019m a sucker for Michael Palmer, a medical thriller writer whose books are a complete guilty pleasure.\u00a0 Usually I get an advance copy in December, right about the time I\u2019m fried by Christmas, and it\u2019s just the ticket for relaxing at the end of a busy day.<\/p>\n

Palmer has written a long string of medical \u201cstand alones,\u201d but it seems like he now may be tackling a series, beginning with his most recent paperback, Oath of Office. <\/em>In that book he introduces Dr. Lou Welcome, an ER doc, recovering drug addict, and divorced father who also works in the Physician Wellness Office (PWO) where he mentors physicians with substance abuse issues.<\/p>\n

This novel, after a prologue in Afghanistan, returns to Dr. Welcome in his PWO office, when, in the middle of an unpleasant conversation with his boss, he gets a distress call from an old friend who simply asks him to come quick.\u00a0 Palmer never messes around (I gave one to my Dad once, who was delighted that there was action on the very first page).\u00a0 This installment is no different.<\/p>\n

This novel varies from the formula that\u2019s worked for Palmer for many years \u2013 a dedicated physician who uncovers some kind of secret conspiracy.\u00a0 Believed by no-one, the main character is doubted and hounded almost out of his\/her career.\u00a0 This is a fantastic<\/em> formula.\u00a0 I\u2019m all for it, and I\u2019ve read every single novel that Palmer has written so far.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not against the series idea, and while this is actually an excellent and hard to put down thriller, I still missed the medical setting, which Palmer, a doctor himself, always makes authentic.\u00a0 But this is a twisty and complicated story involving a secret group of special ops marines.\u00a0 Lou is pulled into the story because his friend in distress, a well known DC doc, has been accused of murdering a congressman and is being held in jail.<\/p>\n

Lou is positive his friend is innocent and works from that premise, despite hostility from his friend\u2019s lawyer and indifference on the part of the cops, who are sure they\u2019ve arrested the guilty party.\u00a0\u00a0 Lou has a lot of different connections and he calls on many of them throughout the novel, making some new ones along the way.<\/p>\n

Like the characters in a Dick Francis novel, Palmer\u2019s main characters are always decent, down to earth guys (or gals) who know what\u2019s right and stick to it, even when it gets them in trouble.\u00a0 Lou Welcome is no different from any of his predecessors, and he has a good backstory.\u00a0 In this book he even acquires a bad tempered cat.<\/p>\n

Palmer\u2019s skills as a thriller writer are second to almost none.\u00a0 He is a very sure handed, straight ahead story teller.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to look up when you\u2019re reading one of his books.\u00a0 I am already looking forward to next year\u2019s installment \u2013 I hope Dr. Welcome will find himself back in a hospital.\u00a0 It will be interesting to see how Palmer handles the challenges of a series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m immune to John Sandford and James Patterson, but I\u2019m a sucker for Michael Palmer, a medical thriller writer whose books are a complete guilty pleasure.\u00a0 Usually I get an advance copy in December, right about the time I\u2019m fried by Christmas, and it\u2019s just the ticket for relaxing at the end of a busy … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-suspensethriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880","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=880"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2214,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions\/2214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}