Rage Sleep

A medical thriller with chilling geopolitical implications, this novel is a collaboration between Navy lieutenant Morton (Pilots Die Faster) and her father, a retired anesthesiologist. Lamentably, the story falls apart at midpoint and devolves into the clich d scenario of a power-mad scientist about to destroy the world. What's going on when the Algerian Secretary of State suddenly decapitates his president; when the commanding general of U.S. peacekeeping forces in Korea lapses into paranoid delusions of resuming hostilities at the 38th parallel; when, without warning, an attentive Californian husband starts beating his wife? Each of these unsuspecting guinea pigs has undergone surgery--with Anaex, a new wonder anesthetic--at the prestigious Murphy Medical Center, where young anesthesiologist Christopher Thorne begins to suspect the drug's deadly side effects. But Thorne is called up by the Army to serve in Korea and, once there, is ordered to accompany the deluded general on a night raid behind the truce lines. What happens there, and subsequent events back in the States, send Thorne on a rush to the Oval Office to avert disaster. A tenuous plot thread attempts to revive questions about the JFK assassination, but few readers will wait for the denouement of this ponderously written novel. (Oct.)