Life Support Review

Life Support 
by Tess Gerritsen
First published in 1996
From Goodreads:

The overnight ER rotation at Springer Hospital is a calm one, which suits Dr. Toby Harper just fine. While Toby is fiercely proud of the stripes she earned as a resident in a big-city ER, she's come to appreciate the pace at Springer. But no hospital could have been prepared for the man Toby admits one quiet night. Delirious and in critical condition from a possible viral infection of the brain, he barely responds to treatment. And then he disappears without a trace. Under fire from the hospital administration for literally losing a patient, and fearful that she's missed a life-threatening diagnosis, Toby knows she must find the patient. Her hunt is intensified when a second delirious patient dies in the hospital's care. But even more chilling is the discovery that the infection can only be spread through direct tissue exchange.

My Thoughts: A few years ago I read my first Gerritsen novel- The Surgeon.  I quickly devoured the Rizzoli and Isles books, while I collected her other stand alone books.  Last year I finally read one- The Bone Garden, which turned out to be one of my favorite reads in 2011.  As part of my resolve to read the many, many unread books I already own this year, I picked up Life Support.

I don't know if I picked the best time to read a medical thriller, as I read it while keeping watch over my mom in the hospital (she's doing much better and will be coming to live with us once she gains strength at a physical rehabilitation center). Fortunately the plot had more to do with Alzheimer's and genetic experimentation than the pneumonia and congestive heart failure that my mom was busy fighting.

Let me start with what I did like- Life Support gives a very real portrayal of Alzheimer's disease and what it's like for the family members and care takers.  The science behind the genetic experiments, while disgusting and perhaps unrealistic, was thrilling and there were some great plot twists throughout the book.  Some of the information in the book was a little outdated, but this is one of Gerritsen's earlier books, and the woman knows how to craft a plot.

Where the book failed to grab me was the main character.  I never felt connected to Toby and didn't much like her, although towards the end I did feel bad for her plight even if I kind of blamed her for some of the trouble she found herself in.  To be honest though, it took me a couple of books to warm up to Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles too.  Probably because I don't have much in common with there tough, driven women, but Gerritsen creates great female characters- they may be successful, but they're hardly one dimensional and suffer from the same issues all women deal with, in this case Toby has pretty much put her life on hold in order to care for her ailing mom.  Normally Tess Gerritsen book's get me so wrapped up in the plot that I soon find myself caring for characters that are hard to love (Rizzoli in The Surgeon is a particularly prickly pear).


Life Support was okay, but not great.  It will not deter me from reading the rest of Tess Gerritsen's books- I tend to be pretty author loyal.  This book was a fairly decent medical thriller, it just didn't grip me as tightly as her previous books have done.

Life Support gets a Midnight Book Rating of:

The cover of Life Support (at least the edition I own) gets a Midnight Book Rating of:

The cover's slightly pornographic looking and has little to do with the plot.