Allen Wyler's latest medical thriller Dead Head is a jaw-dropping exploration of the
research yielding ever more organic interfaces between computers and humans, and the almost limitless possibilities of accelerating medical breakthroughs.
The chilling theoretical what-if wraps around entwined plots: radical Mideastern
terrorists plan a devastating dirty bomb attack on the U.S., and they kidnap brain surgeon Russell Lawton's daughter to secure his cooperation in conducting a macabre, almost unbelievable human experiment. When Lawton's ex-wife reports their daughter missing and tags
him as the kidnapper, FBI
agents start sniffing around Lawton's NIH laboratory. The stakes ratchet higher with every passing hour as the doctor
desperately attempts the impossible: implementing a computer interface that will allow a dying man to communicate, even after his body has failed, until his part in the plot is complete.
Wyler keeps the reader up to speed with the necessary scientific information without resorting to massive chunks of dry exposition.
Historical research and procedural step-by-stepping makes this story something the average lay reader can parse. Wyler is himself a neurosurgeon, and his expertise in the story's arena
turns what at first seems an outrageous medical implausibility into a chilling, disturbing possibility. Dead Head stands alongside Robin Cook's best work on the top medical thriller shelf.