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Booklist Review: "Palmer adds to his lengthening list of successful thrillers (most recently, Miracle Cure, 1998) with a clever blend of the spy-versus-spy and science-versus-disease subgenres. Like many thrillers, The Patient rests on "what if" speculations. What if skilled medical teams around the world were competing to perfect and patent a small robot powerful enough to destroy brain tumors without harming the brain's infinitely sensitive tissue? What if a ruthless international terrorist-for-hire developed a brain tumor that traditional neurosurgical techniques could not safely remove? After a brief stop in the heartland to establish the terrorist's brutality, Palmer's drama plays out in a Boston hospital, whose neurosurgical and robotics team attracts, first, a renegade CIA agent who lost a brother to the terrorist and has unsuccessfully trailed him for years, then the terrorist himself and his associates. Although Palmer's characters are far from multidimensional, his heroes are sufficiently empathetic--and his villains sufficiently vile--to keep readers rooting for the home team through extortion and murder, medical mayhem and medical miracles. A satisfying read that Bantam plans to back with aggressive publicity, so expect requests. --Mary Carroll" From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission. Publisher's Weekly Review: "Palmer's ninth medical thriller (after Miracle Cure) probably isn't the book to be reading when you've got a slight headache. Early on, a star Olympic gymnast feels a small pain in her skull, and soon she's having a brain tumor zapped by a flashy new surgical robot. The author, who was a full-time practitioner of internal and emergency medicine for 20 years, tells readers so much about the actual work of brain surgery that some might decide to skip over a few of the more agonizing moments, such as the frenzied operation on a young boy with a bullet wound. Yet these bloody and painful details put readers firmly inside the skin of Dr. Jessie Copeland, a neurosurgeon in her 40s with a combined undergraduate degree in biology and mechanical engineering. Now working under egomaniacal chief surgeon Carl Gilbride at a top Boston hospital, Jessie gets to try out ARTIE (Assisted Robotic Tissue Incision and Extraction) on cadavers, while Gilbride coaxes foundations to cough up millions for the revolutionary new procedure. Attracted by the media attention generated by ARTIE's use (too early, Jessie thinks) on the gymnast, shadowy terrorist Claude Malloche, known as "the Mist," who also has a brain tumor, comes to the hospital for treatmentÄand winds up holding patients and staff hostage in case the operation fails. It's finally up to Jessie and a rogue CIA agent to keep everyone healthy. This graft between medical and terrorist thriller has some rough edges, but the operation is a success. Agent, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved" (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved