Joshua Spanogle Isolation Ward

Isolation Ward

Joshua Spanogle

Delacorte, March 2006, $22.00, 391 pp.

ISBN 0385338538

Nathaniel McCormick, a hot dog investigator for the CDC, is on assignment in Baltimore Maryland at St. Raphael's Hospital. Three mentally challenged females who live in group homes, two of their roommates have come down over the course of a few days with an illness that nobody can identify. Nathaniel finds out that two of the female roommates made love to include a m nage de trois with Douglas Bachman who also lives at the group home.

When other patients come down with the same illness, Nathaniel digs further into Douglas's past. He is the only patient in the group home to have a cell phone, and when the police trace it, the only number called is Gladys Thomas, another patient in a group home in San Jose. Douglas' body is soon found with all his organs removed. In San Jose, Gladys identifies Douglas as Casey, but the next day she is found dead. Nathanial thinks it is murder, just as he believes his mentor Dr. Harriet Tobel was murdered after leaving him a message on his cell phone. Dr. Tobel also recognized Casey, and Nat wonders how, because she is working on a way to transplant pig organs into humans through a grant from Chimeragen. He struggles to figure out the disease and the murderers, if the perpetrators don't get to kill him before he succeeds.

Joshua Spanogle's debut book is as good as those of the medical thriller grandmasters Robin Cook and Michael Palmer. His protagonist begins the investigation as a hot dog, and ends it by seeing that justice is served, even if it means injuring himself to do so. The mystery is like a fun house maze, with some falls, twists and turns, and distorted reflections that propel the audience to read it in one setting so they can find out how all the sub-plots link together into a fantastic novel.