Michael Palmer: Side Effects

By MICHELE HEWITSON

As if there weren't enough real-life horror stories lurking within the health system, Palmer, who spent 20 years working in it, specialises in scaring the hospital-issue pyjamas off anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves wearing a pair. In the Metropolitan Hospital of Boston where Dr Kate Bennett is a "brilliant" young pathologist, there are scarier things than super hospital bugs waiting to carry you away to the morgue.

There's a strange and revolting illness which is killing women. There's the strange and revolting relationship Kate has with her wannabe-congressman husband. And there's the ominously named Omnicenter where they treat only women who agree to be seen a certain number of times a year and to take the secret vitamin treatments prescribed - without asking awkward questions. There's a lot of other silly stuff.

A stint on an operating table involving the removal of several limbs without anaesthetic could not possibly be as painful.

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