Rating: 
Summary: As a book on tape, this is an OK medical-thriller but...
Review: ...perhaps it is the genre, but every medical thriller I read (or, in this case, hear) seems like a re-hash of "Coma." Evil medical doctors who are conducting illegal/immoral experiments/surgeries are thwarted by good guys who stumble upon the plot and eventually thwart it.
In this case, our hero (Dr. Toby Harber) stumbles upon two elderly men from the same gated retirement community who are exhibiting sudden onset dementia and who have similar twitching in the exremeties. Is there a connection? Will she solve the mystery?
This abridged book on tape was ocassionally a little too abridged, but it was not too hard to follow. The reader was Megan Gallagher (the wife on the dark thriller TV show "Millenium"). Gallagher's voice is excellent for exuding (practically oozing) sympathy. This is wonderfully appropriate for some of the scenes, especially when there are deaths in the hospital. At other times, she turns on this "sympathy voice" on odd ocassions. At one point, she sounded like she was going to cry as the character baked a casserole!
So, in short - not an original over-arching plot, but there were several good thriller scenes and the sub-plot concerning Dr. Harper's mom was a nice touch to the story. Gallagher's excessive sentimentalizing as she read was both a plus and a minus so we'll call that a draw.
Rating: 
Summary: Top-Drawer Medical Suspense
Review: A doctor's sense of responsibility to follow up on a missing patient turns into a dread-filled horror that leads her to the worst nightmare of her life. Dr. Toby Harper is a tough, intelligent woman with too much to do and too little time. An ER doctor working the night shift at Springer Hospital in the Boston suburbs, Toby must also act as caretaker for her Alzheimer's-stricken mother during the day while trying to catch some sleep. As difficult as her routine is, things take a turn for the worse when Dr. Harper finds her life completely unraveling in a matter of only weeks. Dr. Wallenberg, a geriatrics specialist, has devoted his career to researching a way to extend life beyond its normal span. His blind passion leads to the deaths of many, but in the name of progress he continues his experiments. He finds his subjects among the elderly who are wealthy enough and desperate enough to risk anything for a chance at longevity. Aside from the nuisance of dying patients, Dr. Wallenberg is well on his way to success until Toby Harper enters the scene.
This is yet another triumph for Gerritsen. I have also read Gerritsen's first thriller, "Harvest" (1996), and I thoroughly enjoyed both. "Life Support" has interesting medical aspects without getting too dry or detailed. It also benefits from realistic characters and dialogue, and a good dose of creepiness that heightens the suspense. The story's end is a bit disappointing as it dips into the improbable, but the book is nonetheless a definite must-read.
Rating: 
Summary: Life Support
Review: A great "page turner" that kept me up all night to see the end. I enjoy all of Tess Gerritsen's work!
Rating:
Summary: Too Realistic!! wonderful story and characters
Review: As a nurse, I can tell you that modern day medicine is not too far behind this. With the Money Hungry facilities and practicioners, this is too believeable. I read it today, and couldn't put it down. It's everybit as good as Robin Cook.
Rating:
Summary: Belivable medical thriller
Review: Dr. Toby Harper has a lot on her plate. She works the twelve-hour overnight shift in the Emergency Room, and at home, she takes care of her elderly mother who has Alzheimer's. When a patient is brought into Toby's hospital in the middle of the night, delirious and confused, she's stumped as to what he may be suffering from. His immediate medical tests are clear, and his family knows nothing of any former medical history that may have led up to this. Then things get even more complicated. The patient disappears right off the table, even though he's been strapped down.In an effort to get to the bottom of things, Toby starts investigating a nearby retirement home for the wealthy. With the help of Dr. Robbie Brace who works at the Brant Hill retirement center, Toby slowly starts uncovering clues that finally begin to point her in the right direction. At the same time, Toby's career is in danger as she's being blamed for letting the patient disappear, and her home life is quickly collapsing around her as her mother's nurse quits and she's forced to hire someone else on short notice. Toby Harper makes a wonderful heroine in LIFE SUPPORT. She's strong and intelligent, and yet she's also very vulnerable and incredibly loyal to her mother. Though it means basically giving up her privacy and her social life, Toby would rather have her mother continue living with her than consider putting her in a nursing home. The secondary characters are also wonderfully three dimensional and interesting, from Robbie Brace, the black doctor among the elitist white staff at Brant Hill, to Molly Picker, the sixteen year old prostitute who wants nothing more than to get off the streets and go home, even though her parents want nothing to do with her. A fully believable, beautifully crafted novel, LIFE SUPPORT is a must-read for fans of medical thrillers.
Rating:
Summary: Very Interesting
Review: Ever wanted to learn about Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and teratomas? Dr Toby Harper investigates when a confused man disappears, and then there's the matter of a woman giving birth to something hideously deformed. (B+)
Rating:
Summary: DARK AND DISTURBING
Review: Gerritsen explores the area of longevity and how desperate some people are to prolong their lives; the risks they will take, and the horrifying consequences when that desire exceeds safety and caution. What make this book work so well is Gerritsen's ability to create individual scenes that ring of truth, particuarly in the relationship between Toby, her sister, and her mother. Some of the dialogue is biting, harsh, yet with an underlying compassion and confusion that accompanies the anguish of Alzheimer's. Tess also establishes a great deal of sympathy for a supporting character, Molly Picker, whose life as a prostitute leads her into an unbelievably cruel outcome. Her phone call home to her mother, begging her to let her come home, is gut-wrenching in its realism and her mother's cruelty. The story builds well, and Toby's romance with Dan Dvorak is well-done, although the curtain of doom that hangs over Dan at the end does leave a little bitter taste.
All in all, Tess continues to be a master of the medical thriller; check out her excellent "The Surgeon," "Harvest," and "Bloodstream." She makes you wonder just how safe we are in a hospital!
Rating:
Summary: Almost Too Scary
Review: I always appreciate a good medical thriller, so I'm not the type to swoon at the first mention of blood.This book, however, had me so frightened that instead of feverishly forging ahead to see what happens next (which I desperately wanted to do), I had to put it down from time to time to regain my equilibrium. When Gerritsen is at the top of her game, as she is in this novel, I think nobody can beat her. Not Robin Cook, not anybody. It's hard to describe the plot without giving away vital information, and I don't intend to be a spoiler. But I can tell you that the action starts hard and fast on the very first page, when a world-renowned surgeon, elderly but revered in his field, attempts a simple appendectomy and winds up killing his young, healthy patient in the most gruesome of ways. Our glimpse into his mind while this is going on is almost scarier than the act itself...and that is the first chapter of the book! It doesn't get calmer from there. It seems that a number of very fit elderly men, in full control of their faculties and all living in a very upscale retirement home, are showing strange mental symptoms, one after the other, and eventually dying horrible deaths. Dr. Toby Harper,who heads the ER rotation at a local hospital, encounters two of these patients, and is at a complete loss to diagnose the problem, let alone solve it. Her dogged determination to get to the bottom of the illness(es) lands her in a conspiracy so sinister that she can't even guess at the true nature of it, except to know that it is putting herself, her dear elderly mother who suffers from Alzheimers, and seemingly her entire medical reputation at stake. A subplot, wherein innocent young runaway girls are captured on the streets and impregnanted with god knows what, forms a counterpoint to the main tale. All I can tell you is that Toby, probably the one innocent in the drama, ends up wanted by the police for murder--and the bad guys, who are diabolical, seem to be getting away scott-free with their intensely fiendish plot. Sound good? Try it. You may not sleep well at night, but it's worth it. Tess Gerritsen is without peer when she truly believes in what she is writing about, and this book proves it. All I can say is, WOW!
Rating:
Summary: Held my attention from beginning to end
Review: I am reviewing this book in its ABRIDGED format of only two tapes. This abridged recording begins when an underage prostitute is delivered to her client. She's immediately put off by the sleazy location but plays along entering a white walled room filled only with a bright light and what appears to be a doctor's examination table. She hops up on the table as instructed but is soon sucking in noxious fumes and knocked unconscious . . . Next we meet Dr. Toby Harper who works the graveyard shift in the emergency room. One night an old man appears in the ER with no apparent illness besides a penchant for stripping off his clothes in public and a bit of disorientation. As Toby goes about examining him his leg starts to twitch. She's called out on another call and when she returns he has disappeared and Toby is held responsible. Soon another old man arrives (who was, coincidentally, living in the same fancy retirement community as the first mystery man) with similar symptoms but this man dies. Toby is suspicious, orders an autopsy and does some snooping around on her own when she is met with unreasonable resistance to her questions. It seems that some experimentation with prolonging life has been going on at the retirement home with frightening side effects. When Toby eventually discovers a bit of what has been going on her own life becomes endangered. This was an interesting medical thriller with an engaging protagonist but once Tape 2 begins the abridgement becomes very apparent. Events begin to happen fast and furiously and characterization is minimal. For the most part, the cuts necessary for this abridgement are smooth but I did find myself left a bit confused on more than one occasion and would've loved to have gotten to know all of the players a bit better. If I stumble across an uncut version of "Life Support" I'll definitely check it out to read all that I missed.
Rating:
Summary: Gerritsen is fast becoming my new favorite pop novelist
Review: I believe I'm actually going backwards as far as the chronology of her titles are concerned. The first book of hers that I read was "GRAVITY", which I thought was perfect. "LIFE SUPPORT" didn't disappoint either. What makes Gerritsen's medical thrillers work is her utter believability. Although a lot of the medical jargon went right over my head (I'm sure I'm not the only one) it certainly comes across that she knows what she's talking about. So far, both books that I've read have centered around an intelligent heroine, who beat the odds of having their reputations tarnished, and yet end up victorious. I would, however, have preferred to know a little bit more about the fate of the heroine's love interest in the book, maybe by Gerritsen explaining a bit more in detail as to the curability of the illness and so on. Overall, I preferred GRAVITY to LIFE SUPPORT because the heroine in the former was not only a doctor, but a flight surgeon on a NASA shuttle. Makes for a great plot! If you haven't tried that one yet, you certainly should. I'm looking forward to checking out her latest novel THE SURGEON... just waiting to find a copy at a nice price. :)
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