Did you love Dexter and NCIS? Is the X-File’s Dana Scully your dream date? Then turn off your TV and power up your Kindle, because there’s a wide world of medical thriller eBooks to explore. The plots are far more imaginative and entertaining than anything you’ll currently find on TV.
Aside from being arguably among of the best medical thrillers published in the past decade, these five struck as as being among the genre’s most imaginative. Enjoy!
The Cobra Event by Richard Preston
[easyazon_image add_to_cart=”default” align=”left” asin=”0345409973″ cloaking=”default” height=”160″ localization=”default” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” src=”//ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51XHNuxuvuL._SL160_.jpg” tag=”bestthricom-20″ width=”95″]The Cobra Event is set in motion one spring morning in New York City, when a seventeen-year-old student wakes up feeling vaguely ill. Hours later she is having violent seizures, blood is pouring out of her nose, and she has begun a hideous process of self-cannibalization. Soon, other gruesome deaths of a similar nature have been discovered, and the Centers for Disease Control sends a forensic pathologist to investigate. What she finds precipitates a federal crisis.
The details of this story are fictional, but they are based on a scrupulously thorough inquiry into the history of biological weapons and their use by civilian and military terrorists. Richard Preston’s sources include members of the FBI and the United States military, public health officials, intelligence officers in foreign governments, and scientists who have been involved in the testing of strategic bioweapons.
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Dust (A Kay Scarpetta Novel) by Patricia Cornwell
[easyazon_image add_to_cart=”default” align=”left” asin=”0399157573″ cloaking=”default” height=”160″ localization=”default” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” src=”//ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ftYgMlllL._SL160_.jpg” tag=”bestthricom-20″ width=”105″]Massachusetts Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta has just returned from working one of the worst mass murders in U.S. history when she’s awakened at an early hour by Detective Pete Marino.
A body, oddly draped in an unusual cloth, has just been discovered inside the sheltered gates of MIT and it’s suspected the identity is that of missing computer engineer Gail Shipton, last seen the night before at a trendy Cambridge bar. It appears she’s been murdered, mere weeks before the trial of her $100 million lawsuit against her former financial managers, and Scarpetta doubts it’s a coincidence. She also fears the case may have a connection with her computer genius niece, Lucy.
At a glance there is no sign of what killed Gail Shipton, but she’s covered with a fine dust that under ultraviolet light fluoresces brilliantly in three vivid colors, what Scarpetta calls a mineral fingerprint. Clearly the body has been posed with chilling premeditation that is symbolic and meant to shock, and Scarpetta has reason to worry that the person responsible is the Capital Murderer, whose most recent sexual homicides have terrorized Washington, D.C. Stunningly, Scarpetta will discover that her FBI profiler husband, Benton Wesley, is convinced that certain people in the government, including his boss, don’t want the killer caught.
In Dust, Scarpetta and her colleagues are up against a force far more sinister than a sexual predator who fits the criminal classification of a “spectacle killer.” The murder of Gail Shipton soon leads deep into the dark world of designer drugs, drone technology, organized crime, and shocking corruption at the highest levels.
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The World Beneath (Joe Tesla Book 1) by Rebecca Cantrell
[easyazon_image add_to_cart=”default” align=”left” asin=”1494787717″ cloaking=”default” height=”160″ localization=”default” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” src=”//ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51QTbWP7LiL._SL160_.jpg” tag=”bestthricom-20″ width=”104″]Software millionaire Joe Tesla is set to ring the bell on Wall Street the morning his company goes public. On what should be the brightest day in his life, he is instead struck with severe agoraphobia. The sudden dread of the outside is so debilitating, he can’t leave his hotel at Grand Central Terminal, except to go underground.
Bad luck for Joe, because in the tunnels lurk corpses and murderers, an underground Victorian mansion and a mysterious bricked-up 1940s presidential train car. Joe and his service dog, Edison, find themselves pursued by villains and police alike, their only salvation now is to unearth the mystery that started it all, a deadly, contagious madness on the brink of escaping The World Beneath.
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The Righteous (Righteous Series Book 1) by Michael Wallace
[easyazon_image add_to_cart=”default” align=”left” asin=”1612182186″ cloaking=”default” height=”160″ localization=”default” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” src=”//ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51dY8UN2w8L._SL160_.jpg” tag=”bestthricom-20″ width=”107″]Deep in the Utah desert, the small polygamous community of Blister Creek has a history of protecting its own. Even when a young woman is brutally murdered just blocks from her home, the residents of the conservative enclave close ranks. But just because they don’t want outside law enforcement in their business doesn’t mean the murder will go unpunished.
More than a thousand miles away, Jacob Christianson, a medical student and son of a devout church elder, learns of his cousin Amanda’s murder. Though Jacob is skeptical of many of the community’s fundamentalist beliefs, his sharply analytical mind and family connection to the victim earns him the assignment of investigator into Amanda’s death. Jacob heads to Blister Creek, accompanied by his inquisitive younger sister, Eliza, to probe the bizarre circumstances of their cousin’s violent death. It doesn’t take long for the pair to realize that Amanda’s murder was no random act; rather, it is part of a covert plot to overthrow the church’s leaders.
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The Atlantis Gene: A Thriller (The Origin Mystery, Book 1)
[easyazon_image add_to_cart=”default” align=”left” asin=”1940026016″ cloaking=”default” height=”160″ localization=”default” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” src=”//ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41V9ASjrj5L._SL160_.jpg” tag=”bestthricom-20″ width=”107″]The Immari are good at keeping secrets. For 2,000 years, they’ve hidden the truth about human evolution. They’ve also searched for an ancient enemy–a threat that could wipe out the human race. Now the search is over.
Off the coast of Antarctica, a research vessel discovers a mysterious structure buried deep in an iceberg. It has been there for thousands of years, and something is guarding it. As the Immari rush to execute their plan, a brilliant geneticist makes a discovery that could change everything.
Dr. Kate Warner moved to Jakarta, Indonesia to escape her past. She hasn’t recovered from what happened to her, but she has made an incredible breakthrough: a cure for autism. Or so she thinks. What she has found is far more dangerous–for her and the entire human race. Her work could be the key to the next stage of human evolution. In the hands of the Immari, it would mean the end of humanity as we know it.
Agent David Vale has spent ten years trying to stop the Immari. Now he’s out of time. His informant is dead. His organization has been infiltrated. His enemy is hunting him. But when David receives a coded message related to the Immari attack, he risks everything to save the one person that can help him solve it: Dr. Kate Warner.
Together, Kate and David must race to unravel a global conspiracy and learn the truth about the Atlantis Gene… and human origins. Their journey takes them to the far corners of the globe and into the secrets of their pasts. The Immari are close on their heels and will stop at nothing to obtain Kate’s research and force the next stage of human evolution–even if it means killing 99.9% of the world’s population. David and Kate can stop them… if they can trust each other. And stay alive.
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