Allen Wyler, Dead Head

Dead Head

Allen Wyler

Forge, Feb 2007, $6.99, 340 pp.

ISBN: 0765355965

In Georgetown Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Mohammed, an automobile accident victim likely to die, is being treated. His comrades paid $50,000 in cash for him to have the best care and since also he looks Muslim, the FBI is notified. Across the country at the San Francisco Moscone Convention Center, neurosurgeon Russell Lawton is kidnapped by Muslims after giving a speech on his research.

The abductors know Mohammed is dying but before he dies he has to complete his mission, a terrorist attack in the D.C. area. They demand Dr. Lawton, if the situation warrants it, to remove Mohammed's head and put it in a "brain computer interface to produce speech from thoughts." As an incentive to gain the doctor's cooperation they have kidnapped his daughter and will kill her if he doesn't perform the cutting edge surgery. If he helps these predators, millions of lives will be lost; if he doesn't, they will kill him, his colleague and his daughter.

Science fiction becomes science fact as the author states in the afterward that the concepts are sound and only technology is needed to accomplish what the terrorists want. There is plenty of action in this exciting, adrenaline-producing thriller yet the characters, even the antagonists, are well developed so that readers get to know them and what drives them. DEAD HEAD is a medical thriller that is on par with the best of Robin Cook.

Harriet Klausner