Customer Reviews

Flashback

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I love every single one of Michael Palmer's books. They all keep me one the edge of my seat, especially Natural Causes, Extreme Measures and The Sisterhood. These books were so brilliantly written that I was scared out of my mind. They all kept me sitting on the edge of my seat. Want to know the best part? I couldn't put any of them down, I tune everything else in the world out and only focus on the suspense I have right in front of me. In Flashback, and eight year old Toby has a surgery and everything goes well. Months go by and then Toby begins to relive what happened to him in the OR. He is tormented with visions of everything transpired during the surgery, everything, including the immense pain. Unfortunately Toby isn't the only patient who is experiencing this bizarre effect after the operation. Other patients who has gone this weird twist of events haven't been able to live with the terror, so they kill themselves. Soon someone will reach the conclusion that something unusual is transpiring at the hospital. If that person doesn't hurry there will be some disastrous affects. If they do not hurry, another patient will be wheeled into the OR, none the wiser to the terror and torment that awaits them there.

I am never disappointed when reading a Michael Palmer. I think the man could scribble on tree bark and I'd be happy.

As always, the storyline is believable and easy to follow.

Definitely worth the time to read!!

I love every single one of Michael Palmer's books. They all keep me one the edge of my seat, especially Natural Causes,Extreme Measures and The Sisterhood. Flashback kept me sitting on the edge of my seat. Want to know the best part? I couldn't put it down. In Flashback, and eight year old Toby has a surgery and everything goes well. Months go by and then Toby begins to relive what happened to him in the OR. He is tormented with visions of everything transpired during the surgey, everything, includiong the immense pain. Unfortunatly Toby isn't the only patient who is experiencing this bizarre effect after the operation. Someone at the hosptial needs to figure what's going on in this hospital and soon. If not another patient will be wheeled into the OR none the wiser to the terror and torment that awaits them.

This book had a great premise. Too bad the author chose to focus on hospital policy and administration more than than the story line. This book was boring. It jumped from story line to policy chapter after chapter. It was a struggle to finish.

We're reading Michael Palmer's medical thrillers in order, having thoroughly enjoyed his earlier "Sisterhood" & "Side Effects". As before, most of the story revolves around a hospital, this one, Sterling New Hampshire's Ultramed, part of a big business conglomerate. The successful administrator is Frank Iverson, son of the town's patriarch, Judge Clayton Iverson. When younger brother Zack finally finishes all his training in neurosurgery, he decides (with some misgivings) to return to the family stomping grounds and sign on with Ultramed. We're soon introduced to an 8-year-old, Toby, who is near dieing over reliving his surgery of a year or so ago. We readers are given enough clues to know something is up, and it finally turns out two doctors are in cahoots to experiment on certain patients - gads! As our hero Zack starts to zero in on the malpractice, his new love, cardiologist Susanne Cole, is also victimized, certainly making the whole thing more personal. Meanwhile, hospital politics are rife with tension as Frank and Zack do not see eye to eye almost off the bat; and the Judge is stirring up a possible community buyback of the hospital. Female Ultramed executives bring more chaos to the scene as Frank gets more desperate to hide a years earlier embezzlement, the experimental drugging his salvation??

As with his early books, Palmer keeps us hooked til right near the end. In fact, he mixes so many ingredients from the human condition into this one that we can't even tell what kind of stew it is. But it tastes good and leaves us looking for more Palmer - handy he finds success and as of now has seven more novels for us to enjoy. Let's get at it!

This book differed quite a bit from the rest of Michael Palmer's books. While most of the books I've read by Palmer deal mainly with hospital life, this book focused a lot of hospital politics. The book itself was good, but not one of his better books. The ending of the book dropped off very quickly and left me wondering and guessing what happened. If you're a Palmer fan, read it. Otherwise, try another of his books.

I have finally found a writer that can get me to read. I have read all of Michael Palmer's books, and have loved them. I like the way he starts out with the plot in his first chapter or two, and then he drops it cold. The entire book goes by before he starts to bring the first plot into the picture. His plot is well thoughtout, very detailed, and paints a vivid picture in your mind of the scene and things going on. I have probably read only one paperback in my life, but at age 38, having found Michael Palmers books, I can't put them down.

This is my first Michael Palmer book and unless I get a copy free my last. The premise was great, illegal drug experiments on hospital patients and a child who my die if the experiment is not uncovered.
However, for me the premise was more exciting than the excution. The main problems with the book was that there was no suspense. It was not thrilling or sinister or scary. No one was really a bad guy just very greedy and selfish. Zach as a lead was just ok. What bothered me was that he lacked real strenght of character. He seemed to just go through the motions because he got sucked into this situation and roll with it because he was a nice guy. Suzanne was the female lead was not appealling to me at all. She got my nerves. She was coy, she was cold, she was defensive, she didn't know what she wanted. What Zach saw in her besides a great face and great sex...well I guess it was enough.

Too much time was spend on Frank and his issues as a has been high school sports star and his money hungery goals. Just too much time spent on the whole hospital/corporate money games when more focus should have been on the actual premise: illegal and unethical experiments on patients.

One thing I will give Mr. Palmer credit for is putting this question out there: How many people would ignore horrible wrongs just to keep a job? Well according to Mr. Palmer that would be just about everyone in his book.

This is my first Palmer book and it gets three stars for two reasons: it kept me reading til the end and it provided an easily understandable scenerio of how corruption can occur within the medical industry.

I did have some problems with the book. First, as stated by others, the book is more about hospital politics than about what is described on its back cover. The main character is an "aren't my a perfectly wonderful" doctor, not a traumatized eight year old buy.

My second problem is the unbelievability of alot of the hospital scenes, i.e., fighting in the ER, non-sterile admin going into the operating room DURING a surgery.....scenes that are hard to imagine happening in a hospital.

And finally, the characterization suffers from bipolar disorder. There are only two types of characters in this book: saints and devils. The protagonist is just simply not convincing -- he is too darn nice and perfect and ethical and caring and patient and well..........irritating. His dialougue, in the beginning of the book, is all pure syrup. Strangely, about one third in, the dialogue gets a little more sophisticated. The others in the story, the protagonist's father and brother, are arrogant, monstrous criminals. It all just doesn't jibe. They are either all good or all bad - no personality, just persona.

This is a good read for when you want a break form heavier stuff. I read this after having finished reading all of Patrick McGrath's books, so I needed some mass market paperback fast food.

The story is interesting. You want to keep reading til the bad guy(s) get their due (spoiler: the father is never held accountable for drunk driving that kills a person. - OUCH! Mr. Palmer)

Enjoy a borrowed copy - for a carefree afternoon. It's better than TV.

It's been a while since I've read any Michael Palmer, only reading a few of his books occasionally. But, I was pleased I picked up this book and enjoyed most of the story in contained. Engaging is one word that sums it up. By that I mean, you cared about the characters, and you couldn't wait to know how it would end.

The book begins with a young boy who is having flashbacks from his hernia surgery, remembering every detail, every ounce of pain. Then, we are introduced to brothers- Zack and Frank. Frank is the Chairman of the hospital that Zack has just been hired at to work at for neurosurgery. Zack quickly stumbles upon the story of this little boy and is determined to get to the bottom of it. However, his brother Frank has other ideas.

One item the plot was missing was more suspense. I mean, we are told pretty much right off the bat who is doing illegal things at this hospital. I think it could have been 100 times more exciting had we NOT known. However, since we did know, most of the story we're wondering about is WHAT is causing patients to recall their surgeries. And who will win, the good guys or the bad? However, I still enjoyed the book and the characters.