The Final Push

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

synopsis

Synopsis

While on call for the trauma service, third-year medical student Michael Higgins finds himself in an extraordinary situation. He is summoned to the ER to participate in the evaluation and management of a critically-injured patient and soon discovers that the unconscious man lying before him is the same man who, two months earlier, committed a heinous act of violence that shattered Michael’s personal life. Following a lengthy emergency operation, the patient—known only as John Doe—is now under the care of the trauma team, of which student doctor Mike Higgins is a member. As John Doe’s condition gradually improves, Higgins’ personal life deteriorates further, but there might be a way to reverse the downward spiral: if he sees to it that John Doe never leaves the hospital, Michael Higgins’ world may right itself.

bio

Author Biography

I’m a former heart surgeon turned fiction writer. I write what can be described as medical mysteries, medical thrillers or novels of medical suspense, but I prefer to think of them as novels of surgical suspense. What is surgical suspense? Surgeons, surgical diseases and the operating room are all inherently dramatic. As a former surgeon, I’ve experienced this drama first hand and thought it would make for good fiction. My surgery training took me from the knife-and-gun-club of LSU Medical Center in Shreveport, Louisiana, to the famed Bellevue Hospital in Midtown Manhattan. My education as a writer includes an MFA degree where I was mentored by New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane, among other accomplished faculty. I know a lot about medicine and surgery, I know a lot about writing and storytelling, and I believe that combining this vast and unusual right-brain/left-brain experience will make for interesting reading and discussion, so please visit often.

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Author Insight

Higgins laments his wife's condition

During a home-invasion robbery and brutal assault, Lisa suffers a depressed skull fracture, which has left her with severe migraine headaches. Despite the risk of addiction, Higgins willingly administers intramuscular injections of Demerol in order to relieve his wife's suffering.

Book Excerpt

The Final Push

In the bathroom, Higgins took a syringe, pre-loaded with a hundred milligrams of Demerol, from the medicine cabinet. It used to be twenty-five, and then fifty. Now it was a hundred, sometimes twice a day. Were the headaches getting worse, or was she becoming addicted? It didn’t matter. Either way, she was rapidly declining. Two months ago she was a caring, compassionate nurse with endless potential and a bright future, which might have included medical school. And now she had been reduced to a barely functioning shadow who lived each day in fear of the next crippling migraine, the unfinished med-school application sitting in the desk drawer.

He squeezed the back of her arm and stabbed the needle deep into the triceps muscle. She didn’t flinch. He injected the Demerol, then sat next to her and watched her drift into a drug-induced haze. Once he was sure her breathing was not going to stop, he turned off the light, went downstairs, and sagged into the cold Naugahyde of the fake-leather chair.

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Richard Van Anderson

The Final Push

Synopsis

Author Biography

Author Insight

Higgins laments his wife's condition

During a home-invasion robbery and brutal assault, Lisa suffers a depressed skull fracture, which has left her with severe migraine headaches. Despite the risk of addiction, Higgins willingly administers intramuscular injections of Demerol in order to relieve his wife's suffering.

Book Excerpt

The Final Push

Comment on this Bubble