Division chief of emergency services at UCLA hospital, David Spier is just as horrified as his colleagues when a madman wielding a beaker of drain cleaner attacks an ER nurse who happens to be the sister of an LAPD cop. But when he uncovers the abuse the assailant suffered as a child in a psychological experiment Spier's own mother signed off on decades ago, David puts his career in jeopardy to keep Clyde Slade safe from a policeman bent on vengeance, even after Slade attacks the woman David loves and threatens his life. Gregg Andrew Hurwitz packs the pages with enough medical details and procedures to keep ER fans satisfied until summer reruns are over with this foray into --Jane Adams

After two page-turners distinguished mainly by their lurid action and intrigue (The Tower; Minutes to Burn), Hurwitz shows a more serious side in this adeptly researched, well-constructed tale about science gone awry. One thing that hasn't changed, however, is the authors knack for creating distinctive villains. Here, its a psychologically damaged young man who is terrorizing the staff of a Los Angeles hospital by throwing flesh-burning alkali in the faces of nurses and doctors. After the second attack, police finally figure out the assailant is Clyde Slade, a disgruntled former hospital worker who was let go months earlier for trying to steal drugs. Emergency room physician David Spier believes that Slade may be motivated by something deeper. He launches an investigation of his own, eventually determining that Slade was an unwitting participant in a hushed-up medical study decades earlier that ended in disaster. The study, designed to foster fear in young boys, wound up traumatizing most of them for life. Slade's current behavior, Spier reasons, represents not only a way to exact revenge against the hospital but fulfills a psychological need to generate fear and torment in others. As the cops close in, Spier finds himself advocating for Slade even as he hunts him down. In his most ambitious book to date, Hurwitz delves convincingly into the world of medicine, psychology and investigative techniques. Some characters, a gleeful embalmer, a Nazi construction worker, are a bit over-the-top, and several scenes serve as little more than showcases for Hurwitz's research. But the action comes fast and steady, and by the end, Hurwitz has almost made the case that an alkali-throwing loonie deserves our sympathy.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.