Tunnel Vision

Graduate student Zack Kashion, the hero of Braver's entertaining medical thriller, is trying to finish his dissertation at Northeastern University, but he keeps getting sidetracked by his gambling habit and resulting debts. Then he hits his head in a bad bike accident on a Boston street. On awaking in the hospital from a 12-week coma, atheist Zack finds he has become an object of intense interest by religious fanatics after being secretly filmed muttering in ancient Aramaic, a language he doesn't know. After leaving the hospital, he signs up as a paid volunteer for a private scientific study that's putting subjects into near-death comas and recording their brainwaves for activity in an attempt to prove that there is indeed life after death. To complicate matters, a paid assassin is killing scientists involved in the experiment. A surfeit of religious discussion may put off some readers, but in general Braver (Skin Deep) shows himself an adept practitioner of this subgenre. (June)