FICTION

Nature’s Bite (2022)

By Mark Powers MED’77

It’s April 2024, and a mysterious visit from FBI agents interrupts a quiet evening at Dr. Phineas Mann’s house. Worsening climate change is leading to more difficult asthma cases, and Phineas is tasked with investigating a novel drug treatment with Dr. Marie Porter for the pharmaceutical giant, SynMedical. Marie has just returned to North Carolina 26 years after her single mother abruptly extracted her from the sixth grade to disappear without explanation into the rural Northwest.

Meanwhile, the Republican U.S. President, in the final year of his second term, develops alpha gal syndrome; caused by Lone Star ticks finding their way north as the planet warms. Then a surprising assignment sends Phineas and Marie, against their wills, into intrigue at the highest levels in a hotter, dirtier, and more polarized country.

Deception (2019)

By Derrik Woodbury MED’77, RES’82

George Anderson is President of the United States and he needs urgent surgery. An enigmatic billionaire named Douglas sees an opportunity to expand his power and replace the Anderson Administration with a puppet President without the national angst of an assassination or scandal. Only Jim Williams, a Georgetown surgical resident, and Frederick Hall, an aging legendary Secret Service Agent can prevent this cunning treachery. A young charismatic senator and the world’s most popular entertainer are also ensnared in this web of love, danger, subterfuge and murder.

Unseen forces collide in a desperate attempt to seize command and control of the U.S. Government. For nothing is what it seems in DECEPTION.

Ari’s Spoon (2021)

By Douglas Zipes MED’62

As young surgeon Gabe Goerner and his wife, Cassie, enter the church for his three-month old daughter’s baptism, her gown, a family heirloom of unknown origins, triggers the security metal detector. After Gabe discovers the cause is an engraved silver spoon sewn into the double-layered hem of the tiny gown, the mysterious discovery soon transports him through a cascade of unforgettable events that lead him from contemporary Indianapolis to the Warsaw ghetto during World War II, from underground bunkers to operating rooms, and from the safety of home to the Treblinka death camp. What he finds on his mission will forever transform his life. Ari’s Spoon is the historical tale of a young surgeon’s journey to the truth after he finds a spoon hidden in his daughter’s baptismal gown.