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Overview
Fourth-year medical student Demetri Makropolis has been assigned to cover orthopedics at Eastside Medical Center, one of New York City’s finest hospitals. Just as his surgery team begins to operate on New York’s leading drama critic, F. J. Pervis III, the patient suddenly goes into cardiac arrest. The team fails to resuscitate him, so the corpse is moved to the hospital’s morgue. But before the autopsy is even performed, the body vanishes from the morgue and mysteriously reappears a day later—with the brain surgically removed. Even more disturbing is the medical examiner’s discovery: Pervis was still alive when the ghostly craniotomy was performed.
With their reputation at stake, the hospital assigns NYPD’s Detective Patrick McManus to the case; meanwhile, Demetri learns of an eerily similar century-old unsolved mystery that leads him to an enigmatic figure lurking in the bowels of the medical center. With Pervis as his experiment, the perpetrator initiates a chain reaction of chaos and murder in Manhattan.
A gripping tale filled with ambition, romance, jealousies, and black humor, Night Harvest is a thrilling ride that culminates in the long-abandoned elaborate network of subterranean rooms and corridors that still lie beneath present-day Manhattan.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781620454855 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | TURNER PUB CO |
| Publication date: | 10/15/2013 |
| Pages: | 360 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The next thing Pervis knew, he was on a gurney heading down a hallway. Strange dreams during the surgery had him perturbed: he dreamt of being pounded on his chest until his ribs cracked and being electrocuted multiple times. He tried now to lift his head but could not muster the strength. Strange, he thought, the knee didn’t hurt at all – his surgeon must be damn good after all. Strange also that his peripheral vision was blocked by what seemed to be black sheets. As he looked between them he expected to see the anesthesiologist, a preppy white guy with horn-rimmed glasses, wheeling him, but this man was Asian. Nor did he recognize the man leading the way at the foot of the gurney. As they entered the elevator, Pervis realized they must be residents or nurses taking him to the recovery room. But he could swear that the last time he had surgery here, gastric bypass, the recovery room was on the same floor as the OR and the anesthesiologist took him there. Well, he thought, this is a teaching institution, where the doctors-in-training do all the work while the attendings trade stocks all day on their Blackberries. Just wait until I receive the anesthesia bill – that doctor will have some explaining to do.
As the elevator door opened, the transporters continued to chat and laugh. Pervis noted that the hallway they entered was much darker than the other parts of the hospital. The medical center was probably trying to cut power costs. The hallway was also much hotter and stuffier than usual, and his body felt very damp and clammy, no doubt a lingering effect of the anesthesia. They passed what looked and sounded like kitchens and rounded a corner to enter an even darker corridor, with overhead steam pipes.
He tried to speak to the transporters but they continued to ignore him as they rolled along. Why can’t they hear me? Pervis thought. He tried to yell and even grab the transporter’s arm but to no avail – he felt physically and psychologically paralyzed. He started to feel severe pain in his chest and ribs, as if the pounding was no dream, and his neck was sore. Pervis realized something had gone very wrong.
The two men hit a button on the wall to open a large door. They went through it into a room that was practically freezing. The two men transferred him roughly to another stretcher, one that was cold and hard. He labored to shout out or sit up, but the efforts ended at his brainstem. The transporters turned and were exiting the room when the Asian one said something to the other then turned, walked up to the gurney, and zipped closed what was apparently a black plastic bag surrounding Pervis, leaving him in utter darkness. As Pervis heard the two men leave, and the door slam shut behind them, he recalled that there had been a sign over the room’s entrance:
SUBBASEMENT
MORGUE
AUTHORIZED
PERSONNEL
ONLY