Life Support

This was, I believe, the second Tess Gerritsen book I have read. Now, you should know that I love medical thrillers. Robin Cook is one of my favorites. But Tess crosses the line: with scientists creating chimeras of various body parts, inserting them into prostitutes, wait for the chimera to grow, then kill the prostitutes (and then catch the chimera as it slithers across the floor, so you can harvest its parts). It was all just way too graphic for me.

If you find the concept of cloning reprehensible, then you will NOT enjoy this book. If you want to read about scientists doing the above things in the name of science, then maybe you would like this book. But I don't recommend it.

Dr Toby Harper was exhausted when the police brought in the old man who’d been found confused and wandering, naked, through the nearby streets. Springer Hospital where Toby spent her nights working the ER was generally quiet at that time of night, but the disoriented man was thrashing and jerking, delirious and completely out of it. And when he vanished from the hospital not long after admission, Toby was hit with resounding guilt.

When Toby’s attention was drawn to another elderly patient a few days later, her niggling concern that his symptoms were similar to the disappearing gentleman were met with disbelief. Especially from his own physician. But it was on his death that the horrifying diagnosis was made. Toby was fearful of an epidemic – but she couldn’t convince any of her peers. She knew there was something strange going on. But when murder found its way to the parking bay of the ER, and Toby had trouble at home, she knew she had to find answers – fast. Before it was way too late…

Life Support by Tess Gerritsen is another gripping medical thriller from this author. I haven’t read anything of hers for awhile and I always forget just how GOOD she is at weaving the intricacies of the plot. Fast paced and intensely chilling, Life Support is one I highly recommend.

Read for my book club. Looked like intriguing premise, this "Novel of Medical Suspense". Started out OK but didn't take long for the plot to deteriorate, become increasingly preposterous and implausible, not to mention formulaic (with even a touch of romance thrown in). And I didn't realize it would include sci-fi type horror.
This is my first TG book and likely my last, although I've heard her Rizoli & Isles' stories are much better. Protagonist, Toby, was not very believable or even likable -- made some stupid choices for someone supposed to be an ER physician.
I enjoy fiction and realize authors take liberties, but this was over the top. One example, though I realize this was 1997, all the sharing of patient info got to be ridiculous.

Tess Gerritsen was writing highly charged bestselling thrillers long before detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles first appeared on the page. After nearly a decade as a romance novelist, which you can read more about in my Turn the Page review of Ice Cold, she turned her attention to medical thrillers. Gerritsen started out with a bang with the 1996 release of Harvest, a chilling tale about the illegal acquisition and sale of human organs. It landed her on the New York Times bestsellers list. That's a tough act to follow, but she did it with the 1997 release of Life Support.

In the middle of a routine operation, a surgeon goes crazy, starts slicing into an otherwise healthy patient, slashes a stunned colleague, and then flees and throws himself headfirst through a window. Meanwhile, an elderly man with no history of medical problems is found naked and disoriented. He's brought to the emergency room but vanishes before doctor Toby Harper can complete her examination. She senses something is wrong, but is thwarted any time she tries to get answers. When another patient comes in exhibiting similar symptoms, Toby's determined to uncover the truth. She continues to dig, and soon finds that her career, her loved ones and her own life are in jeopardy.

Life Support is about the age-old quest for the fountain of youth and the often blurred lines between science and morality. It's the sort of book that will keep you thinking, guessing, questioning, and definitely turning pages. I had a very hard time putting it down. If there's a flaw in the novel, it's that Tobuy's world falls apart a little too quickly. Co-workers and even family members turn on her without much cause. I didn't have much trouble overlooking that because the plot is so incredibly compelling. I don't know how I missed Life Support when it first came out but I'm glad I went back to read it.

In her second novel, Life Support, Tess Gerritsen creates the story of Dr. Toby Harper, an ER physician who admits a man to the emergency room one evening who seems to have a serious infection of the brain. Before she can run tests and treat him, he disappears. Dr. Harper is, of course blamed for the man's disappearance, and is considered by her superiors to have been totally irresponsible and negligible. Then when Dr. Harper discovers several other cases of similar brain infections, she sets out to find the cause of what she considers an epidemic. During her investigation, she finds she has enemies at the higher levels of the hospital; her medical practices are being scrutinized and she is on the verge of losing her job. During this time, a young prostitute finds she is pregnant, and tries to disappear in order to keep her child; while in hiding, she stays with another prostitute who is also pregnant, but is subsequently murdered. Although the two stories are told side by side, there doesn't seem to be any correlation between the two. Dr. Harper discovers that there is an underlying evil connected to both the patients with brain infections and the pregnant prostitutes. Toby finds herself in imminent danger as she uncovers the secrets connected to the evil.

Gerritsen is a physician, who practiced for many years before becoming a writer. Fans of medical thrillers will find themselves fascinated by this story. The hospital scenes seem true-to-life, due to plenty of factual medical information and medical scenarios that are woven into the plot. The book, however, is a fast read because of Gerritsen's easy, no-nonsense style of writing. Most importantly, the book is entertaining.

This book was purchased with personal funds and no promotion was solicited from the author or publisher.

Just finished Life Support by Tess Gerritsen this evening. I read my first Tess Gerritsen 4 years back and reviewed it here. It was book # 2 in her Jane Rizzoli-series and it was called The Apprentice. I wasn't impressed. Later on I picked up a couple of other Gerritsen-books and found that I enjoyed them. So it didn't take long to pick up Life Support and get reading. The story is about ER doc Toby Harper and about how a normal and perhaps a little boring life can deteriorate in a matter of weeks, which is was happens to Toby when she stumbles across a conspiracy involving a luxurious retirement home, young prostitutes and her own mother, suffering from Alzherimer's. One slow night in the ER, Toby receives an elderly man who is naked and confused and found wandering the streets of Boston. Before Toby can diagnose him, he has disappeared into thin air and no matter what Toby and her staff do, he remains missing. Toby cannot get him out of her head and finds out that he was a resident in the luxurious retirement home Brant Hill. Soon she smells something fishy going on in the Brant Hill retirement home and she begins her own investigations, going against the wish of several colleagues and doctors from Brant Hill. Then unpleasant things begin to happen to Toby herself, and in a matter of a few weeks, she doesn't know whom to trust and whom not to trust. All in all this is a pretty good plot and the book is also relatively well written. BUT! I like a medical thriller as much as the next girl, but this one wasn't fast paced at all. It was also too easy to guess the plot and the character development was lacking. It was hard to find any sympathy with the main characters who just felt one-dimensional and slightly annoying. Still, Life Support is an easily read and entertaining little medical thriller, but I am sure Tess Gerritsen can do much better than this.

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.

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!

I absolutely love Tess Gerritsen's novels!!! This is the fifth one I've read, and I have to say, it was good, but not as thrilling or suspenseful as her other novels.

Life Support depicted Dr. Toby Harper as the beleaguered main character - an overworked, socially deprived ER doctor trying to sort out mysterious patient deaths while dealing with her ailing older mother. I was not as impressed with Dr. Harper as I was with Dr. Gerritsen's other protagonists (think Dr. Maura Isles and Det. Jane Rizzoli - these ladies were hard-as-nails but also feminine) because Dr. Harper's character just seemed too plain tired and drained to be strong! Also, I thought the other characters in this book were a bit one-dimensional...

The story was somewhat formulaic and stretched....the threads of the plot didn't come together as smoothly as I had hoped, though the story overall kept me entertained enough during a three hour plane flight. The action moves quickly and you are in for a few surprises that will keep you guessing.

However, if you are new to discover Dr. Gerritsen's works, I recommend not starting with Life Support....try Body Double, The Apprentice or The Sinner (these are five star books, in my opinion!). These truly showcase the author proficiency for weaving a scary, suspenseful medical thriller with "you won't see it coming" twists that will make it hard for you to NOT finish the book in one sitting!

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.

Life Support is the 10th stand-alone novel by Tess Gerritsen. Springer Hospital's night-shift ER doctor, Toby Harper, finds her job is on the line when she literally loses a patient. The elderly man presents with confusion and apparent seizures, but while the ER staff are dealing with another emergency, the patient disappears. When another patient with identical symptoms, from the same exclusive residential community, with the same doctor, dies in the hospital, Toby wants to investigate further, fearing an infectious cause. As Toby tries to find out more, she hits a brick wall with the admitting doctor and the residential community, which arouses her suspicions. But problems in her personal life complicate matters even further. Medical murder mystery is Tess Gerristen's forte and she, once again, gives us a great plot and credible characters and dialogue. The ME in this novel can, in some ways, be seen as the blueprint for Maura Isles role in the Rizzoli and Isles series. Another great Gerritsen read.

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!

Tess Gerritsen has done it again...she has managed to make me lose track of an entire day...and not reget it for a moment.
I have read some of her other books, and since I am a student in the medical profession, I like reading them based on her medical background. But thats not the only reason...the woman can plot a book with the best of them and ratchet up the tesnion level like no other.
Toby, an ER doctor sees something strange come into the emergency room while on shift, but the patient leaves the hospital, and Toby is blackballed at every turn by those who hold higher positions than she does.
The story of this mysterious disease in one steeped in money, wicked doctors, stolen babies and hidden truths. As each layer of the mystery is peeled back further and further, Toby loses those that are most dear to her. Will her fears win the day, or will the quest for truth and accountability be the ultimate victor?
When this book reaches its conclusion, you will be left with a breathless feeling of relief, but hungering for more of Ms. Gerritsen's novels. Certainly one of the best I have read in a long while.

Alright where to start where to start! I first heard of her when i picked up the book "the vanished" her most recent one, which i alreayd reviewed, im guilty of reading her new book before loving her and going back to her older books. Glad to say im not too dissappointed.

once you open this book will would basically get sucked into the first few paragraphs. she doesn't hide the juciey stuff for later! she just gives it to you, grabbing your attention. which is really rare for some authors to do. She is fastly growing to bbecome my favorite.

getting along, the story revolves around Dr. Toby a seurgeon who works hard night shifts while a sitter stays at home taking care of her mom who is suffering from memory loss. all the weight is on her, all the stress of work, slams Dr. Toby pretty hard. but she is a very strong headed woman and refuses to admit defeat! all while her sister vicky, who i think is really selfish and a big pain in the behind, complains complains on how Toby doesn't take care of the mom.

well to start off the good parts. it all began when a man was imited into the hospital on one of Toby's night shifts not knowing who he is and not knowing where his home is, a sign of alzimers from first glance, but the strange part of this man was that he wasn't wearing any clothes! either way since it is in the hospital, so many things are going on at once when suddenly a patient who was in a horrible accidnet rushes in, Toby leaves the man in the "supposed" care of another nusrse who had alreayd informed the son that his father was in the hospital. when all the drama was over, and the son comes in to see his father. THAT was when Dr. Toby realized that the old man has gone missing... the plot unravels from there, where the private home where the man lives in his gated private "stepfords wives" sort of neighborhood wanted to have dr. Toby dismissed for her incompetance in handleing THERE patient and losing him.

all while not too far away a teenage girl was getting pimped out to a man who she though has a fetish with playing "doctor" when in actuality, these were doctors preforming an extreme and must be monitored procedure/experiament. what does this all have to do with the private gated community in which the old goes to be young again? well you just have to read the book.

the book only lost one star from me because at the end, i was not too happy with how it all got thrown togehter. i can't tell you the ending though but it left A LOT of questions unanswered for me in how the heck did so and so know this?....

this didn't discourage me from picking up another one of her books though!

If you reach for a Tess Gerritsen novel, you know what you're going to get -- a psychological thriller cloaked in enough medical terminology to have you sounding like an ER doc, with some graphic blood-and-guts scenes thrown in for good measure. While Gerritsen's books are not for the faint of heart, they are well-plotted and well-written, with strong characters and plenty of action. Because they're all written from that recipe, they do tend to run together, and "Life Support" is another one that fits that bill. The storyline involves tracing a killer virus whose roots lie in "fountain of youth" hormone transplants. With all the recent talk about biochemical warfare and killer viruses, this book is sure to strike a chord with the public.

One question -- what's with the naked babe on the cover of the book? I guess Gerritsen's having a hard time letting go of her romance roots.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the heroine from Harvest could meet the star of Life Support for a cup of coffee. Picture them together, the amazed looks on their faces as they realize how much they have in common! Both are talented female hospital based physicians who find out that an evil cabal of doctors is wreaking havoc on the health of patients. And, in both cases our protagonists digging into their affairs do not amuse the dastardly doctors.
Toby and her new found friend discover that a few missteps in their work coupled by efforts of the vile physicians have placed their jobs and personal safety in great jeopardy. And, gasp, both of them had to face real or potential malpractice lawsuits.
Tess Gerritsen can write attention-grabbing thrillers. No question of that, but is she going to use the same plot format for all of her stories? I realize that her latest novel, Bloodstream, which I have not read, takes place outside of a hospital, but a read through of the cover summary makes me awfully suspicious that the same plot is going to descend on us once again.
Please, TG, you seem to be a good thriller writer, but would you please, please, change some of the basic elements in your next story? If you have not read either of these novels, please do read one of them, and you will be well rewarded. If you read both I'm sure you will be drenched in déjà vu.

I have read this book several times and have always enjoyed it. It is suspenseful and unpredictable. I have yet to read anything by Tess Gerritsen that has not been really good. Great book and great author.

Tess Gerritsen, que era médica antes de se dedicar à carreira literária, dá autenticidade a outro thriller médico, em que uma jovem e dedicada doutora se envolve num caso misterioso e letal.
Toby passa as horas do dia sozinha com sua mãe que sofre de Alzheimer.
O plantão na emergência do Hospital Springer está indo de forma calma para a Dra. Toby Harper, até a entrada de um homem em condições críticas com uma possível infecção viral no cérebro.
O homem delira e não responde a nenhum tipo de tratamento - logo depois, desaparece, sem deixar vestígios.
Antes que Toby o consiga achar, aparece um segundo caso, revelando um fato terrível: o vírus só pode ser transmitido através de contágio direto com o tecido doente.
Seguindo uma trilha de mortes que vai desde uma prostituta de 16 anos grávida, até a própria mãe da doutora, Toby descobre o impensável: a epidemia não começou de repente... alguém a deixou começar...
Vários pacientes idosos mas ainda em plena saúde, de uma mesma casa de repouso para ricos, começam a apresentar sintomas de confusão mental e começam a morrer misteriosamente, um após o outro.
Parece que os médicos dessa casa de repouso descobriram uma forma de prolongar a vida de seus pacientes. Infelizmente, os procedimentos que são necessários para tanto, tem efeitos colaterais terríveis.
Toby é a única que se interessa por investigar o caso, e acaba procurada pela polícia por assassinato.
É difícil escrever mais sobre a trama deste livro sem fornecer informações vitais e ser spoiler. Mas as primeiras cenas, quando um cirugião bem experiente e famoso, mata sua paciente numa simples cirurgia de apêndice, porque sua mente já não funciona de forma normal, já mostram o enredo do livro.
Mas...
O enredo desse livro é, em muitos casos, deveras parecido com Harvest. Ambas protagonistas são talentosas e dedicadas médicas que descobrem uma quadrilha de médicos, está controlando a saúde dos pacientes de forma maligna. Além disso, ambas passam a ser processadas pelo hospital em que trabalham e procuradas pela polícia.
Eu amo Tess Gerritsen de paixão... na série Rizzoli&Isles.
Esses thrillers médicos que antecederam o lançamento de minha dupla de detetive/médicalegista favorita, possuem, basicamente, os mesmos elementos. Ao ler Harvest e Life Support, o leitor fica com uma sensação de déjà vu... Espero que o próximo, Bloodstream, não siga essa mesma trilha, senão vou enlouquecer.
Bom, pelo menos são melhores que os romances de banca do início de sua carreira, que parecem até que foram escritos por outra pessoa, como Chamada a meia-noite, que chega a ser ridículo.

I enjoyed this story of Dr. Toby Harper ... even if it did remind me a bit too much of Harvest, one of Gerritsen's first books. Highly successful women doctors. Everyone turns against them. Their medical careers are going to be ruined. Yadda Yadda.

But, it's still a good story. Toby sees a series of weird elderly patients with unusual symptoms ... and in trying to get to the bottom of it, annoys some pretty powerful people - both at her hospital and at an elitist retirement community. We watch Toby investigating what's going on around her - see friends and family turn against her as she is falsely accused of abusing her alzheimers-suffering mother. What exactly is going on with this retirement community? Why have so many of their members met with death recently?

Only Dr. Toby Harper can find the truth ... but will it be in time?

If you like medical thrillers but are tired of the virus-escaping-to-destroy-mankind scenario, this tale will be refreshing. Dr. Toby Harper, a young ER physician at a hospital outside of Boston, encounters several, elderly patients with startling, self-destructive behavior. Despite protests from Dr. Wallenberg, their powerful, private physician, she alerts the Medical Examiner. Wallenberg becomes her bitter enemy and works to destroy her career. The Medical Examiner finds that the patients had Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare malady caused by a prion, an agent simpler than a virus, that usually infects only by ingestion of prion-containing brain tissue. With the help of Dr. Robbie Brace, a physician at a retirement home where Dr. Wallenberg is in charge, she tracks the disease to the retirement home. Before she can do more, Dr. Brace is murdered, and someone begins to stalk her. The story moves rapidly to a surprising and intense climax that should keep you turning the pages.

Short but still a thriller, Life Support had my attention right away. Who was doing what to this teenaged prostitute? And why? What did it have to do with the sudden deaths of older people, including Dr. Harper's mother?

Gerritsen's medical expertise is obvious in this chilling novel. What is killing these elderly but apparently healthy people? Is there more than one culprit involved in this coverup operation? Will Dr. Harper figure out who the bad guy is before it's too late? I missed Rizzoli and Isles in this book but knew there had to be a surprise ending in which things would work out for the good guy or gal with or without their assistance. I wasn't disappointed.