The Fourth Procedure

by Stanley Pottinger

Overview

"A MIND-BOGGLING MEDICAL THRILLER TO END ALL MEDICAL THRILLERS. IT MAY BE THE MOST TALKED ABOUT POPULAR FICTION OF THE SEASON."
—Kirkus Reviews
An accomplished attorney prepares to argue a life-and-death case before a hostile Supreme Court nominee....A leading surgeon answers an emergency call to assist an operation in progress....And in a Washington, D.C. morgue, a medical examiner examines a body that has been tampered with. . . .
"HARROWING."
—New York Newsday
Congressman Jack MacLeod is haunted by an episode that changed his life forever. Now his life is about to explode again: the police find evidence linking him to the strange death of a man who lived in MacLeod's New York City district. . . .
"THE BREAKNECK MOMENTUM WILL KEEP THE PAGES TURNING."
—Elle
Suddenly events spin out of control. Backroom deals made by powerful politicos threaten to destroy Jack's future. And, in the shadows, a plan so outrageous and unthinkable it will smash every assumption about the limits of the human body is nearing its shocking conclusion. . . .
"A CHILLING MEDICAL THRILLER."
—Vanity Fair
Combining the best elements of explosive courtroom drama with groundbreaking medical technology, THE FOURTH PROCEDURE takes the reader beyond the boundaries of today's medicine to an all-too-plausible scenario of a frightening future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780345402301
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/30/1995
Pages:	544
Product dimensions:	4.22(w) x 6.85(h) x 1.21(d)

Editorial Reviews

Mining the emotional cauldron of abortion rights, this superbly crafted medical thriller deftly probes every conceivable angle through characters that would seem clichd if they weren't so visible in today's headlines. Pottinger lays out his riveting debut on a vast canvas, topping it off with a brazen plot twist virtually guaranteed to thrill some readers and appall others-but leave no one unmoved. He has painstakingly assembled a large (though never unwieldy) cast, carefully maneuvering them through interlocking scenarios that are both individually engrossing and collectively formidable. The story is centered on N.Y. congressman Jack MacLeod and organ transplant pioneer Dr. Rachel Redpath, each of whom has lost a loved one to a back-alley abortionist and has made pro-choice politics a priority. This commitment is shared by Rachel's best friend-and Jack's live-in lover-Victoria, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who defends battered women. Added to the potent mix are, among others, an influential, 27-year Senate veteran; the president of a heavily funded anti-abortion society, a strong Washington lobby; and a pro-life appellate judge who becomes Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Such often standard-issue devices as blackmail, dicey pregnancies, bombings and mysteriously appearing corpses are given new vigor in this novel's dexterous plotting. Pottinger handily proves the adage that politics makes strange bedfellows, adding ironic twists that skewer long-accepted assumptions. 250,000 first printing; $250,000 ad/promo. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Mining the emotional cauldron of abortion rights, this superbly crafted medical thriller deftly probes every conceivable angle through characters that would seem clichéd if they weren't so visible in today's headlines. Pottinger lays out his riveting debut on a vast canvas, topping it off with a brazen plot twist virtually guaranteed to thrill some readers and appall others-but leave no one unmoved. He has painstakingly assembled a large (though never unwieldy) cast, carefully maneuvering them through interlocking scenarios that are both individually engrossing and collectively formidable. The story is centered on N.Y. congressman Jack MacLeod and organ transplant pioneer Dr. Rachel Redpath, each of whom has lost a loved one to a back-alley abortionist and has made pro-choice politics a priority. This commitment is shared by Rachel's best friend-and Jack's live-in lover-Victoria, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who defends battered women. Added to the potent mix are, among others, an influential, 27-year Senate veteran; the president of a heavily funded anti-abortion society, a strong Washington lobby; and a pro-life appellate judge who becomes Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Such often standard-issue devices as blackmail, dicey pregnancies, bombings and mysteriously appearing corpses are given new vigor in this novel's dexterous plotting. Pottinger handily proves the adage that politics makes strange bedfellows, adding ironic twists that skewer long-accepted assumptions.

Publishers Weekly - Cahners\\Publishers_Weekly

Corpses of antiabortionists keep turning up in Washington, D.C., in unlikely spots, but even more unlikely is their condition-all have fresh incisions and a toy doll with a message stuffed inside it. Drawn into this web of murder and mystery is a wide variety of characters whose seemingly random connections turn out to be not so random after all. Each one has a past that sheds light on the current abortion controversy: the congressman whose first love died from the complications of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, the brilliant surgeon whose mother succumbed to treatment by a back-alley abortionist, the reporter who grew up in an orphanage, the Supreme Court justice whose parents never wanted him. A first-rate thriller that manages to create a multifaceted picture of the religious, political, legal, and medical issues surrounding the abortion debate. Highly recommended.-Cynthia Johnson, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, Mass.

Library Journal

The theme of abortion may seem pretty shopworn, but what Pottinger does with it is remarkable, fascinating--and unsettling as, even before introducing the main characters, he throws us into the midst of a graphically described back-alley abortion. First among the protagonists is Rachel Redpath, a transplant specialist who has put a kidney into the large body of pro-life Judge Abner Titus, the leading candidate for chief justice of the Supreme Court. Then there is pro-choice Congressman Jack MacLeod, who is mixed up in the abortion performed on his adolescent sweetheart, who afterwards died and whose body was defiled in the morgue; accomplished feminist lawyer Victoria Winters; and the most disagreeable character, Eli Graves, president of the pro-life Red Rose Society. The plot that ties them together is launched when already autopsied bodies, their livers removed and little dolls deposited in the empty spaces, start turning up at the District of Columbia medical examiner's office and Dr. Elliot Landy wants to know why. He gets help and support from young reporter Molly McCormick, who almost breaks the fantastic story wide open. Pottinger's first novel will have a massive advertising campaign and a quarter-million-copy first printing, but what will really sell it is its flamboyant creativity and the provocative, but not intrusive, messages it relays.

William Beatty