The blockbuster bestseller that kickstarted a new genreâ??the medical thrillerâ??is now available in trade paperback for the first time.

They called it "minor surgery," but Nancy Greenly, Sean Berman and a dozen othersâ??all admitted to Boston Memorial Hospital for routine proceduresâ??were victims of the same inexplicable, hideous tragedy on the operating table. They never woke up.

Susan Wheeler is a third-year medical student working as a trainee at Boston Memorial Hospital. Two patients during her residency mysteriously go into comas immediately after their operations due to complications from anesthesia. Susan begins to investigate the causes behind both of these alarming comas and discovers the oxygen line in Operating Room 8 has been tampered with to induce carbon monoxide poisoning.

Then Susan discovers the evil nature of the Jefferson Institute, an intensive care facility where patients are suspended from the ceiling and kept alive until they can be harvested for healthy organs. Is she a participant inâ??or a victim ofâ??a large-scale black market dealing in