Michael Palmer has 21 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 17 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.1★ across 24 ratings. The most-rated is The First Family.
The First Family
Summary
The President’s teenage son is threatened by a potentially fatal illness that is rooted in dark secrets from a long-buried past. President Geoffrey Hilliard and his family live in the ever-present glare of the political limelight, with relentless scrutiny of their daily lives. The White House is not an easy place to grow up, so when the President’s son Cam, a 16-year-old chess champion, experiences extreme fatigue, moodiness, and an uncharacteristic violent outburst, doctors are quick to dismiss his troubles as teen angst. But Secret Service agent Karen Ray, whose job is to guard the president's family with her life, is convinced Cam’s issues are serious - serious enough to summon her physician ex-husband for a second opinion. Dr. Lee Blackwood’s concerns are dismissed by the president's team - until Cam gets sicker. Lee must make a diagnosis from a puzzling array of symptoms he's never seen before. His only clue is a patient named Susie Banks, a young musical prodigy who seems to be suffering from the same baffling condition as Cam. Hospitalized after an attempt on her life by a determined killer, Susie’s jeopardy escalates as Cam’s condition takes on a terrifying new dimension. Is someone trying to murder the President’s son? As Lee and Karen race for a cure to Cam’s mysterious and deadly disease, they begin to uncover betrayals that breach the highest levels of national security. Returning to the same Washington, DC setting of The First Patient, which former President Bill Clinton said “captured the intense atmosphere of the White House”, The First Family is a riveting new medical drama from acclaimed novelist Daniel Palmer, in the tradition of his late father, New York Times best-selling novelist Michael Palmer.
©2018 Daniel Palmer (P)2018 Macmillan Audio
Mercy
Summary
Dr. Julie Devereux is an outspoken advocate for the right to die - until a motorcycle accident leaves her fiancé, Sam Talbot, a quadriplegic. Sam begs to end his life, but Julie sees hope in a life together. With the help of an organization that opposes physician-assisted suicide, Julie has Sam coming around to her point of view when he suddenly dies from an unexpected heart attack. An autopsy reveals that Sam died of an unusual heart defect, one seen only in those under extreme stress - in fact, it appears that Sam had been literally scared to death. As Julie investigates similar cases, she finds a frightening pattern...and finds herself the target of disturbing threats. The more cases Julie discovers, the more the threats escalate, until she is accused of a mercy killing of her own. To clear her name and save her career, she must track down whoever is behind these mysterious deaths...but time is running out as someone has decided that killing Julie is the only way to stop her. A riveting medical thriller, Mercy will leave listeners breathless with twists and turns leading up to its explosive conclusion, from New York Times best-selling author Michael Palmer and his son, acclaimed suspense novelist Daniel Palmer.
©2016 Daniel Palmer (P)2016 Macmillan Audio
The Second Opinion
Summary
Dr. Thea Sperelakis has always been an outsider. She has a brilliant medical mind and a remarkable ability to recall details, but her difficulty in dealing with hidden agendas and interpersonal conflicts has led her to leave the complex, money-driven dynamics of a hospital and to embrace working with the poor. Her father, Petros, is one of the most celebrated internal medicine specialists in the world and the founder of the cutting-edge Sperelakis Center for Diagnostic Medicine at Boston's sprawling, powerful Beaumont Clinic.
When Petros is severely injured by a hit-and-run driver, no one thinks he will survive. Two of Petros's other children, both physicians, battle Thea and their eccentric brother, Dimitri, by demanding that treatment for their father be withheld. Meanwhile, Petros lingers in the Beaumont Clinic's intensive care unit, where Thea is his only advocate.
As Thea uncovers the facts surrounding the disaster, it seems more and more to be no accident. Petros himself is the only witness. Who would want him dead? The answers are trapped in his brain...until he looks at Thea and begins to slowly blink a terrifying message.
In The Second Opinion, Michael Palmer has created a cat-and-mouse game where one woman must confront a conspiracy of doctors to uncover an evil practice that touches every single person who ever has a medical test. With unforgettable characters and twists and betrayals that come from the most unlikely places, The Second Opinion will keep you guessing...and looking over your shoulder.
©2009 Michael Palmer (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Oath of Office
Summary
From the New York Times best-selling author of A Heartbeat Away and The Last Surgeon comes a shocking new novel at the crossroads of politics and medicine. What if a well respected doctor inexplicably goes on a murderous rampage? When Dr. John Meacham goes on a shooting spree, his business partner, staff, and two patients are killed in the bloodbath. Then Meacham turns the gun on himself. The blame falls on Dr. Lou Welcome. Welcome worked with Meacham years before as a counselor after John's medical license had been revoked for drug addiction. Lou knew that John was an excellent doctor and deserved to be practicing medicine, and fought hard for his license to be restored. After hearing the news of the violent outburst, Lou is in shock like everyone else, but mostly he's incredulous. When he begins to look into it further, the terrifying evidence he finds takes him down a path to an unspeakable conspiracy that seems to lead directly to the White House and those in the highest positions of power.
©2012 Michael Palmer (P)2012 Macmillan Audio
Resistant
Summary
They fight without conscience or remorse. Their only job is to kill. They are the most ruthless enemy we have ever faced. And they are one millionth our size. When Dr. Lou Welcome fills in last minute for his boss at a national conference in Atlanta he brings along his best friend, Cap Duncan. But an accident turns tragic when Cap injures his leg while running. Surgeons manage to save the leg, but the open wound is the perfect breeding ground for a deadly microbial invader committed to eating Cap alive from the inside out. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, a teenaged girl is fighting for her life against the same bacteria. The germ is resistant to any known antibiotic and the government scientist tasked with finding a cure has been kidnapped. Turning to the Centers for Disease Control for help, Lou Welcome uncovers a link to a shadowy group known as One Hundred Neighbors that has infiltrated our society and is using our health institutions as hostages. Like the deadly germs they can unleash, One Hundred Neighbors will stop at nothing to further their agenda. From the hospital corridors where anything you touch can mean your end, to the top corridors of power in this race against time, Lou must stop an epidemic, save his best friend, and face even his own most terrifying demons. From the New York Times best-selling author comes another heart-stopping thriller that will make you look at the world around you in a new and frightening way.
©2014 Michael Palmer (P)2014 Macmillan Audio
The Last Surgeon
Summary
The New York Times best-selling author and master of medical suspense delivers another shocker of a thriller filled with insider details and a terrifying psychopath. Four murders. Three accidents. Two suicides. One left…. Michael Palmer’s latest novel pits a flawed doctor against a ruthless psychopath, who has made murder his art form. Dr. Nick Garrity, a vet suffering from PTSD—post traumatic stress disorder—spends his days and nights dispensing medical treatment from a mobile clinic to the homeless and disenfranchised in D.C. and Baltimore. In addition, he is constantly on the lookout for his war buddy, Umberto Vasquez, who was plucked from the streets by the military four years ago for a secret mission and has not been seen since. Psych nurse Gillian Coates wants to find her sister’s killer. She does not believe that Belle Coates, an ICU nurse, took her own life, even though every bit of evidence indicates that she did—every bit save one. Belle has left Gillian a subtle clue that connects her with Nick Garrity. Together, Nick and Gillian determine that, one-by-one, each of those in the operating room for a fatally botched case is dying. Their discoveries pit them against genius Franz Koller - the highly paid master of the “non-kill”: the art of murder that does not look like murder. As doctor and nurse move closer to finding the terrifying secret behind these killings, Koller has been given a new directive: his mission will not be complete until Gillian Coates and Garrity, the last surgeon, are dead.
©2010 Michael Palmer (P)2010 Macmillan Audio
Silent Treatment
Summary
Dr. Harry Corbett heads to the hospital to visit his wife, Evie, scheduled for surgery the next day, and finds, much to his shock, that Evie is dead. The police suspect homicide. Their only suspect is Harry. Harry is unprepared for the stunning revelations that follow: his bright, beautiful, highly ambitious wife was leading a double life. But what secret was explosive enough for her to die for? When the killer strikes again, tauntingly murdering one of Harry's favorite patients, Harry is certain of one thing: the killer, moving undetected through a busy urban hospital, could only be another doctor. Desperately, Harry probes deeper, following the only clue Evie left, and finds a sinister pattern that threatens hospital patients throughout the city. Dr. Harry Corbett is engaged in a life-and-death battle of wits with a chillingly efficient monster. And until this monster is unmasked, no patient is safe from his lethal silent treatment.
©1995 Michael Palmer (P)1995 Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, A Division of Random House, Inc.
Side Effects
Summary
Kate Bennett - a bright hospital pathologist with a loving husband and a solid future. Until one day her world turns dark. A strange, puzzling illness has killed two women. Now it endangers Kate's closest friend. Soon it will threaten Kate's marriage. Her sanity. Her life. Kate has uncovered a horrifying secret. Important people will stop at nothing to protect it. It is a terrifying medical discovery. And its roots lie in one of the greatest evils in the history of humankind.
©1991 Michael Palmer (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
A Heartbeat Away
Summary
The New York Times best-selling author and master of suspense delivers another novel at the crossroads of politics and medicine in this shocker of a thriller. On the night of the State of the Union address, President James Allaire expects to give the speech of his career. But no one anticipates the terrifying turn of events that forces him to quarantine everyone in the Capitol building. A terrorist group calling itself “Genesis” has unleashed WRX3883, a deadly, highly contagious virus, into the building. No one fully knows the deadly effect of the germ except for the team responsible for its development - a team headed by Allaire, himself. The only one who might be able to help is virologist Griffin Rhodes, currently in solitary confinement in a maximum security federal prison for alleged terrorist acts, including the attempted theft of WRX3883 from the lab where he worked. Rhodes has no idea why he has been arrested, but when Allaire offers to free him in exchange for his help combating the virus, he reluctantly agrees to do what he can to support the government that has imprisoned him without apparent cause. Meanwhile, every single person in line for presidential succession is trapped inside the Capitol - every person except one: the Director of Homeland Security, who is safely at home in Minnesota, having been selected as the “Designated Survivor” for this event. With enemies both named and unnamed closing in, and the security of the nation at stake, Griff must unravel the mysteries of WRX3883 without violating his pledge as a scientist to use no animal testing in his experiments...and time is running out. Tense, thrilling, and entirely plausible, A Heartbeat Away will make you reflect, wonder, and be truly afraid.
©2011 Michael Palmer (P)2010 Macmillan Audio
Extreme Measures
Summary
Dr. Eric Najarian. He's young, talented, and ambitious. He has all the qualities they're looking for at White Memorial Hospital. He doesn't know he's being watched. Judged. An elite clique of medical professionals thinks he has what it takes to join their secret club. All the young doctor has to do is agree to play by their rules... But Eric has already seen too much. A missing corpse. An unspeakable mutilation. A brutal abduction. It's only the beginning of a plot of terrifying evil. A sinister plan the group will stop at nothing to hide. And if Eric refuses to become their colleague - he will be their next victim.
©1992 Michael Palmer (P)1994 Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, A Division of Random House, Inc.
Political Suicide
Summary
From The New York Times bestselling author of Oath of Office comes a gripping thriller at the crossroads of politics and medicineDr. Lou Welcome, from Palmer's bestselling Oath of Office, is back in this heart stopping medical thriller. A desperate phone call embroils Lou in scandal and murder involving Dr. Gary McHugh, known around the Capital as the "society doc." Lou has been supervising McHugh, formerly a black-out drinker, through his work with the Physician Wellness Office. McHugh has been very cavalier about his recovery, barely attending AA and refusing a sponsor. But Lou sees progress, and the two men are becoming friends. Now, McHugh has been found unconscious in his wrecked car after visiting a patient of his, the powerful Congressman Elias Colston, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Soon after McHugh awakens in the hospital ER, Colston's wife returns home to find her husband shot dead in their garage. She then admits to the police that she had just broken off a long-standing affair with McHugh. Something about McHugh's story has Lou believing he is telling the truth, that the Congressman was dead when he arrived and before he blacked out. Lou agrees to look into matters, but when he encounters motive, method and opportunity he is hard pressed to believe in his friend - that is until a deadly high-level conspiracy begins to unravel, and Lou acquires information that makes him the next target.
©2012 Michael Palmer (P)2012 Macmillan Audio
Fatal
Summary
From The Sisterhood, Michael Palmer's first New York Times best seller, to The Patient, his ninth, reviewers have proclaimed him a master of medical suspense. Recognized around the world for original, topical, nail-biting suspense, emergency physician Palmer's work has been translated into more than 35 languages. Now he reaches controversial and startling new heights in a terrifying tale of cutting-edge microbiology, unbridled greed, and murder, where either knowing too little or trusting too much can be FATAL. In Chicago, a pregnant cafeteria worker suffering nothing more malevolent than flu-like symptoms begins hemorrhaging from every part of her body. In Boston, a brilliant musician, her face disfigured by an unknown disease, rapidly descends into a lethal paranoia. In Belinda, West Virginia, a miner suddenly goes berserk, causing a cave-in that kills two of his co-workers. Finding the link between these events could prove FATAL. Five years ago, internist and emergency specialist Matt Rutledge returned to his West Virginia home to marry his high-school sweetheart and open a practice. He also had a score to settle. His father died while working for the Belinda Coal and Coke Company, and Matt swore to expose the mine’s health and safety violations. When his beloved Ginny succumbed to an unusual cancer, his campaign became even more bitterly personal. Now Matt has identified two bizarre cases of what he has dubbed the Belinda Syndrome - caused, he is certain, by the mine’s careless disposal of toxic chemicals. All he needs is proof. Meanwhile, two women, unknown to one another, are drawn inexorably to Belinda, into Matt’s life - and into mortal danger. Massachusetts coroner Nikki Solari comes to attend the funeral of her roommate, killed violently on a Boston street. Ellen Kroft, a retired schoolteacher from Maryland, seeks the remorseless killer who has threatened to destroy her and her family. Three strangers - Rutledge, Solari, and Kroft - each hold one piece of a puzzle they must solve, and solve quickly. If they don’t, it will be far more than just their own lives that are at risk. Michael Palmer has crafted a novel of breathtaking speed and medical intricacy where nothing is as it seems and one false step could be FATAL.
©2002 Michael Palmer (P)2002 Books on Tape, Inc.
The Patient
Summary
With one nerve-shattering New York Times best seller after another, Michael Palmer has demonstrated his extraordinary ability to create medical thrillers that are at once relentlessly suspenseful and chillingly realistic. And now the former ER physician returns with the stunning and explosive tale of a gifted neurosurgeon drawn into a world of escalating danger and violence, all because of...The Patient. Dr. Jessie Copeland is exactly where she wants to be: A respected neurosurgeon at Eastern Mass Medical Center, she spends her days waging life-and-death battles in the OR and her spare time holed up in a lab, spearheading the development of a tiny robot that could revolutionize brain surgery. ARTIE - Assisted Robotic Tissue Incision and Extraction - is an exciting fusion of biomechanics and radiology that, when perfected, will be able to excise tumors now considered inoperable. But it could be months before ARTIE is ready for use on human beings...or so Jessie thinks, until her ambitious department head jumps the gun and uses the robot in a high-profile case that nets immediate worldwide attention. Suddenly the hospital is swarming with media, vying for a multimillion-dollar grant, and fielding calls from patients desperate for this lifesaving technology. But what no one at the medical center realizes is that the publicity has also reached one of the most malevolent men on earth. Claude Malloche is brilliant, secretive, remorseless, and without regard for human life - a mercenary willing to bring down a world leader or a jetliner filled with people if the price is right. He is also ill with a life-threatening brain tumor that is exactly the sort ARTIE was invented to treat. Now Malloche must come into the open, and he has set his sights on the hospital that has burst to the forefront of neurosurgery: Eastern Mass Medical Center. For those caught on the neurosurgical floor, the nightmare has just begun...and no one is more aware of the stakes than Jessie Copeland. In brain surgery there are no guarantees. But that's exactly what Claude Malloche demands, leaving Jessie to face the most harrowing case of her life. Disaster is just a cut away. And the price of failure may be thousands of lives.... Heart-poundingly scary and immensely entertaining, The Patient is riveting, unpredictable, captivating suspense. It is terror to which no one is immune. Claude Malloche is a master assassin, more rumor than man, for whom murder is an art. No one can identify his face. Now Malloche has a deadly brain tumor, and he intends to have the best neurosurgeon in the world operate on it. To ensure Jessie's cooperation, Malloche has devised a plan of intimidation that puts at risk her life and the lives of hundreds of innocent people. Neurosurgery requires nerves of steel, but in coming up with a scheme to fulfill her oath as a doctor yet thwart a diabolical killer, Jessie will be performing the most complex surgery of her career - on a knife-edge of terror.
©2000 Michael Palmer (P)2000 Random House, Inc.
Trauma
Summary
Dr. Carrie Bryant's four years as a neurosurgical resident at White Memorial Hospital have earned her the respect and admiration from peers and staff alike. When given the chance of performing her first unsupervised brain surgery, Carrie jumps at the opportunity. What should have been a routine, hours-long operation turns horribly wrong and jeopardizes her patient's life. Emotionally and physically drained, Carrie is rushed back to the OR to assist in a second surgery. There, she makes a careless and tragic mental error resulting in irreparable brain damage to her second patient. With her confidence shattered, Carrie quits her residency and moves back home, where her younger brother, Adam, a combat vet suffering from debilitating PTSD, also lives. When Carrie learns about an experimental program at the VA Medical Center exploring the use of deep brain stimulation (DBS) that could forever cure the emotional and memory trauma of PTSD, it seems like a way back into medicine. Carrie is apprehensive, but a chance meeting with David Hoffman, a reporter for the Lowell Observer writing a story on PTSD, helps her overcome any hesitation. Her first surgery appears to be a success until her patient mysteriously vanishes. When a second patient also goes missing, Carrie employees the investigative skills of David, and together they descend into a labyrinth of murder and corruption. And the price Carrie might pay for asking the wrong questions could be her life.
©2015 Michael Palmer (P)2015 Macmillan Audio
Miracle Cure
Summary
With each successive best seller, including Extreme Measures and Critical Judgment, ER physician turned author Michael Palmer sets a new standard for medical suspense...writing "wrenchingly scary" (Publishers Weekly), "chillingly sinister" (Denver Post) novels packed with all the cutting-edge authenticity only a doctor could prescribe. Now, in Miracle Cure, Michael Palmer delivers his most electrifying thriller yet, as an unsuspecting doctor seeks the truth behind a miracle drug...and uncovers a deadly conspiracy. An agonizing sports injury did more than end Brian Holbrook's professional football dreams. It left the skilled cardiologist with an addiction to prescription painkillers that eventually cost him his marriage and his license to practice medicine. But now, at 38, Brian's cleaned up his act, swallowed his pride, and is ready to start over. Yet how far is he willing to go to be a doctor again? The prestigious Boston Heart Institute, home of some of the world's top surgeons and cardiologists, has offered Brian an opportunity to get back into scrubs...and participate in trials of an extraordinary new drug that could revolutionize medicine. Vasclear may have the power to reverse arteriosclerosis, the number one killer in the civilized world. In short, it offers the promise of a pharmaceutical fountain of youth. The initial results are so dazzling, Brian pushes to get his own father, who has a dangerous heart condition, accepted into the Vasclear study. But soon Brian is uneasy. Under close scrutiny because of his past, he knows that the last thing he can afford to do is make waves - and yet he finds himself compelled to ask questions that his superiors can't, or won't, answer: Why crucial records have disappeared.... Why a patient who'd made startling progress has suddenly died.... With billions of dollars at stake in the race to get FDA approval for the drug, Brian's meddling could destroy his career - or worse. For as Dr. Brian Holbrook is beginning to suspect, at Boston Heart Institute, knowing too much is the quickest way to the morgue. From the corridors of a world-renowned temple of healing to the halls of Congress, an exercise in greed turns into an experiment in terror - in Miracle Cure, another suspense triumph from the new master of the medical thriller, Michael Palmer.
©1998 Michael Palmer (P)1998 Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, A Division of Random House, Inc.
Silent Treatment
Summary
In his previous best seller, Natural Causes, Dr. Michael Palmer drew on decades of emergency-room experience to create a terrifyingly realistic world where the line between medicine and murder is scalpel thin. In Silent Treatment, he crosses this line with a heart-pounding thriller guaranteed to satisfy fans of medical suspense. When his wife mysteriously dies the night before she is scheduled for surgery, Dr. Harry Corbett realizes a killer is moving through the wards of Good Samaritan Hospital - a killer so sophisticated and silent that he can only be a doctor.
©1995 Michael Palmer (P)1995 Recorded Books, LLC
The Sisterhood
Summary
Inside Boston Doctors Hospital, patients are dying. In the glare of the operating room, they survive the surgeon's knife. But in the dark, hollow silence of the night, they die. Suddenly, inexplicably, horribly. A tough, bright doctor will risk his very life for a dedicated young nurse who unknowingly holds the answers.
©2005 Michael Palmer (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Fifth Vial
Summary
Get drawn into a novel of medical suspense that begins with these chilling questions: Who ends up with the blood samples you routinely give for tests? What else are they being used for? Why don't you know?
From Boston, a disgraced medical student travels to South America to deliver a research paper that could save her career and becomes a victim of an unspeakable crime....Thousands of miles away, a brilliant, reclusive scientist, dying from an incurable disease that threatens to make each tortured breath his last, is on the verge of perfecting a serum that could save millions of lives, and bring others inestimable wealth....In Chicago, a disillusioned private detective, on the way to his third career, is hired to determine the identity of a John Doe, killed on a Florida highway, with mysterious marks on his body.
Three seemingly disconnected lives, surging unrelentingly toward one another. Three lives becoming irrevocably intertwined. Three lives in mounting peril, moving ever closer to the ultimate confrontation against a deadly secret society with godlike aspirations and roots in antiquity.
Medical student. Scientist. Private eye. Three people who will learn the deeper meanings of brilliance and madness, truth and deception, trust and betrayal.
Three lives linked forever by a single vial of blood: the fifth vial.
©2007 Michael Palmer (P)2007 Brilliance Audio
Natural Causes
Summary
“Reinvents the medical thriller.” (Library Journal) Dr. Sarah Baldwin races to a Boston hospital with a young woman whose normal labor has suddenly become a matter of life and death. As she struggles to save both mother and baby, she doesn't know that two other women have already died under horrifying identical circumstances. And so begins Sarah's own nightmare, as she learns that the prenatal herbal vitamins she prescribed are the only thing these women have in common. Soon Sarah is fighting to save her career, her reputation - her life. For she's certain there must be some unknown factor linking these women, and as she gets closer to the truth, it becomes clear that someone will do anything - even murder - to keep a devastating secret.
©1994 Michael Palmer (P)1994 Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, A Division of Random House, Inc.
The First Patient
Summary
Gabe Singleton and Andrew Stoddard were roommates at the Naval Academy in Annapolis years ago. Today, Gabe is a country doctor and his friend Andrew has gone from war hero to governor to President of the United States. One day, while the United States is embroiled in a bitter presidential election campaign, Marine One lands on Gabe's Wyoming ranch, and President Stoddard delivers a disturbing revelation and a startling request. His personal physician has suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, and he desperately needs Gabe to take the man's place. Despite serious misgivings, Gabe agrees to come to Washington. It is not until he is ensconced in the White House medical office that Gabe realizes there is strong evidence that the President is going insane. Facing a crisis of conscience - as President Stoddard's physician, he has the power to invoke the 25th Amendment to transfer presidential power to the vice president - Gabe uncovers increasing evidence that his friend's condition may not be due to natural causes. Who? Why? And how? The president's life is at stake. A small-town doctor suddenly finds himself in the most powerful position on earth, and the safety of the world is in jeopardy. Gabe Singleton must find the answers, and the clock is ticking.
©2008 Michael Palmer (P)2007 Brilliance Audio