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Searching... Monmouth Public Library | Fic Pottinger, S. 2000 | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Sheridan Public Library | Pottinger | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
The author of the bestselling The Fourth Procedure is back with a provocative thriller that takes readers to a place where memories can become a living nightmare. As a brilliant scientist comes close to an astonishing neurological breakthrough that will alter the very nature of mankind, three lives intersect with shattering consequences.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Ending a five-year hiatus after his bestselling debut (The Fourth Procedure), Pottinger proves he is a master of the art of the medical thriller and a formidable voice in examining American race relations. Here, he examines racial tensions in a plot that includes a vast web of biotechnical dangers and political corruption. New York police detective Nat Hennessy is coerced by his boss to exploit the trust of his fiance, architectural restorer Camilla Dissonette, the beautiful granddaughter of an aristocratic New Orleans family. It's part of a conspiracy to discredit Dr. Cush Walker, a brilliant and controversial African-American neurosurgeon short-listed for a Nobel in medicine. Walker, who also happens to be Dissonette's ex-boyfriend, invented a breakthrough brain-scanning technique for detecting the predisposition for racial bias. This advanced polygraph-type analysis, called the BIAS test, threatens the careers of many cops, including Hennessy. Other effects of Walker's work involve the development of technology to restore damaged brains and transplant personalities, used in the hopes of eradicating the legacy of racial bigotry. Peopled with quixotic characters who enrich the mosaic of revenge, murder and intrigue, the action bounces around like machine-gun fire in a dark alley, while Pottinger makes pseudo-technobabble somehow sound simple. Though one must forgive the occasional clichd lapse in the romantic scenes and minor side trips to smell the roses (and garbage), this kaleidoscopic thriller is marvelously complex, charged with emotional impact and resounding ethical questions. (Feb.) FYI: Pottinger served in civil rights positions in both the Department of Justice and the former Department of Health, Education and Welfare. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
The brain surgery's on the cutting edge, but the plotting isn't'in a second medical thriller from Pottinger (The Fourth Procedure, 1995). Nat Hennessy is a white cop whose father was murdered by a black man. Dr. Cush Walker is a brilliant black scientist whose father was lynched by whites. The lives of both have been shaped by racial hatred, and neither thinks that's a bad thing. Coincidentally'the author employs such devices liberally'both fall in love with gorgeous Camilla Bissonette, an architectural restorer who climbs historic buildings to repair minor ravages. When a helicopter kisses the Statue of Liberty's nose, for instance, Camilla gets tapped to perform cosmetic surgery. Walker finds her irresistible. Their love affair is torrid, short-lived, and history by the time Hennessy arrives on the scene. He, too, finds Camilla irresistible. Three days before he's to make her his bride, however, a sniper's bullet aborts all plans except for those of the sniper'no ordinary lowlife, but J.J. Jackson, the sociopath who, 20 years earlier, had beaten Hennessy's dad to death. The bullet wreaks havoc on Camilla's brain, the kind of damage generally regarded as beyond repair. Fortunately, Dr. Walker's neurological derring-do has now brought him to the brink of a medical breakthrough. His revolutionary procedure, which has something to do with brain scanning and memory transfer, is decidedly dicey, but all agree on the need for desperate measures. How can Hennessy ever hope to equal messianic Walker's gesture? In a burst of organ-donor generosity, he volunteers the Hennessy brain. Thus, the two men whose love for comatose Camilla is as hot as their mutual hatred join forces in her behalf. But even if they restore her, the viperish J.J. Jackson is still lurking and cackling out there. Twists and turns from a plotmeister determined to keep them coming whether they're surprising or not. Some slippage here after a promising debut.
Booklist Review
On the eve of marriage, Nat Hennessy and Camilla Bissonette are threatened with secrets of the past. He is a street-smart New York detective, barely able to conceal racial hatred he's harbored since boyhood when he witnessed his father's violent death at the hands of a black man. Camilla is a native of New Orleans, a restorer of historic buildings, just finding out that her great-grandfather was a black man and pondering whether she should tell her race-obsessed fiance. Complicating the picture is Camilla's former lover, Cush Walker, a brilliant black doctor and the head of a research group that has devised a test called BIAS, which is about to be adopted by the NYPD to measure racial animosity among its force. Cush and Nat are natural enemies, though both are scarred by memories of witnessing their fathers' murders. Nat's integrity is challenged when he gets a chance--and takes it--to sabotage the BIAS program to avenge his father's murder. His second thoughts come too late to stop the hired avenger, but his father's killer manages to turn things around, brutally killing the man sent to kill him and turning his attention to Nat. When Camilla is accidentally shot by the stalker and rendered comatose, Nat struggles with guilt at having endangered her life and jealousy at delivering her into the capable hands of Dr. Cush Walker. While Cush tries to save Camilla's life, Nat is relentlessly tracked by a sadistic killer. This is an action-filled novel, moving between rural Hardy, Mississippi, and fast-paced New York, with fascinating characters and racial themes as well as scientific tinkering with the human brain and emotions. (Reviewed December 1, 1999)0525945415Vanessa Bush
Library Journal Review
Former assistant attorney general of the Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice, Pottinger here follows up his best-selling debut, The Fourth Procedure. His new work manages to link a scientist's groundbreaking neurological discovery with a woman in a coma and a cop who has just discovered his father's killer. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.