The Organ Takers

The Organ Takers is the second novel by Richard Van Anderson, a former heart surgeon who refers to his genre as “surgical suspense.” This is a plausible crime novel which takes place in a medical setting. The story is about a talented chief surgical resident, David McBride, who gets trapped by a psychopathic attending physician, Andrew Turnbull, into helping him manipulate the order of patients on a liver transplant list. Turnbull was making $1,000,000 per patient, until they got caught. Rather than admit that David had been an unwitting accomplice, he declared that he was a co-conspirator. Both men lost their license, so David was thrown into a non-medical world to find his future, and for the incredible wealth it was bound to create for him, Turnbull created his own company to pursue the art of organ transplant.

Except, Turnbull needed funding, and what better way to do that than sell some kidneys on the black market. Of course, they needed donors, and who better than homeless people who could be dumped back on the streets minus one of their vital organs. But, Turnbull needed a skilled surgeon for what was a complicated procedure, and without identifying himself to David, Turnbull blackmailed David into doing the job.

The plot was good, and it was mostly a plot driven story. I was surprised at the chaos and death at the end, but the author also set up a continuing series in a most clever way. The character development was a bit weak, but the science was well-explained. I may not be in a hurry to get to Van Anderson’s first novel, but the quality of this work is not amateurish.