The disease is unlike anything the doctors have seen before, and its rapid progression worries all the medical staff involved. It is Nate who identifies it as a viral hemorrhagic fever. There are a number of viruses that belong to this category including the Ebola virus. This particular one seems unlike others Nate knows and has the potential of becoming a major public health crisis.

Nate questions the sick women. Eventually he makes a connection between all the women and Douglas Buchanan, a mentally challenged man who has had sexual contact with those women and others. Douglas himself has not shown signs of the illness, but Nate suspects he is nevertheless the source of contagion. Douglas has disappeared. He is found shortly afterwards, a homicide victim.

Nate has a brash, aggressive manner. His boss orders him to leave Baltimore, and Nate heads to San Jose to follow up on a thin lead to Douglas’s involvement. There he will make contact with research scientists at the institution where he began his medical studies and nearly ruined his career. He and Dr. Brooke Michaels, a former lover and fellow officer with the CDC, will uncover a vast conspiracy with medical ethics implications.

Nate McCormick is the narrator of Isolation Ward. As can be the case when employing first-person point of view, Nate’s personality – which at times can be very irritating – is an underlying thread in the narrative. He’s part doctor, part detective, and full-time non-respecter of authority. His personal past, which is gradually revealed, plays a significant role in the developing story line.

Isolation Ward is the debut novel by author Joshua Spanogle who wrote the book while a student in medical school. (Michael Crichton’s career began in similar fashion.) Medicine, medical research, and bioethics are woven into the plot. This is not a book for those prone to conspiracy theories – it will reinforce all such suspicions and engender some new ones!

The book has some pacing problems. The plot begins right in the thick of things but slows down after the first few chapters. The middle section loses momentum until it gears up again in the final third. Those final chapters are really gripping and serve as a reward for those who hang in through the slower sections.

The author is writing a second novel featuring Nate McCormick due to be published in 2007. Readers who enjoy the works of Robin Cook may find Isolation Ward a good choice.

--Lesley Dunlap