Bloodstream

A small-town doctor and widowed mother confronts a shocking conspiracy behind an epidemic for which she herself is forced to take the blame

Stephen King Tess Gerritsen is an automatic must-read in my house; what Anne Rice is to vampires, Gerritsen is to the tale of medical suspense. She is better than Palmer, better than Cook...yes, even better than Crichton. If you've never read Gerritsen, figure in the price of electricity when you buy your first novel by her...'cause baby, you are going to keep it up all night.

Auteur

Tess Gerritsen left a successful practice as an internist to raise her children and concentrate on her writing. She gained nationwide acclaim for her first novel of medical suspense, the New York Times bestseller Harvest; she followed her debut with the bestsellers Life Support and Gravity. Her other novels include Body Double, The Sinner, The Apprentice, and The Surgeon. Tess Gerritsen lives in Maine.

Texte du rabat

In this medical suspense novel, a doctor moves to Tranquility, Maine, to shelter her adolescent son from the city and the lingering memory of his father's death. When a boy under her care commits an appalling act of violence, she investigates the controversial drug she prescribed.

Résumé
With her acclaimed novels Harvest and Life Support, Tess Gerritsen has injected a powerful dose of adrenaline into the medical thriller. Now, Gerritsen melds page-turning suspense with chilling realism as a small-town doctor races to unravel the roots of a violent outbreak—before it destroys everything she loves.

Lapped by the gentle waters of Locust Lake, the small resort town of Tranquility, Maine, seems like the perfect spot for Dr. Claire Elliot to shelter her adolescent son, Noah, from the distractions of the big city and the lingering memory of his father's death. But with the first snap of winter comes shocking news that puts her practice on the line: a teenage boy under her care has committed an appalling act of violence. And as Claire and all of Tranquility soon discover, it is just the start of a chain of lethal outbursts among the town's teenagers.

As the rash of disturbing behavior grows, Claire uncovers a horrifying secret: this is not the first time it has happened. Twice a century, the children of Tranquility lash out with deadly violence. Claire suspects that there is a biological cause for the epidemic, and she fears that the placid Locust Lake may conceal an insidious danger. As she races to save Tranquility—and her son—from harm, Claire discovers an even greater threat: a shocking conspiracy to manipulate nature and cause innocents to slaughter.

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter 1: The Present

"Someone´s going to get hurt out there," said Dr. Claire Elliot, looking out her kitchen window. Morning mist, thick as smoke, hung over the lake, and the trees beyond her window drifted in and out of focus. Another gunshot rang out, closer this time. Since first light, she´d heard the gunfire, and would probably hear it all day until dusk, because it was the first day of November. The start of hunting season. Somewhere in those woods, a man with a rifle was tramping around half-blind through the mist as imagined shadows of white-tailed deer danced around him.

"I don´t think you should wait outside for the bus," said Claire. "I´ll drive you to school."

Noah, hunched at the breakfast table, said nothing. He scooped up another spoonful of Cheerios and slurped it down. Fourteen years old, and her son still ate like a two-year-old, milk splashing on the table, crumbs of toast littering the floor around his chair. He ate without looking at her, as though to meet her gaze was to come face to face with Medusa. And what difference would it make if he did look at me, she thought wryly. My darling son has already turned to stone.

She said again, "I´ll drive you to school, Noah."

"That´s okay. I´m taking the bus." He stood up and grabbed his backpack and skateboard.

"Those hunters out there can´t possibly see what they´re shooting at. At least wear the orange hat. So they won´t think you´re a deer."

"But it looks so dorky."

"You can take it off on the bus. Just put it on now." She took the knit cap from the mitten shelf and held it out to him.

He looked at it, then finally, at her. He had sprouted up several inches in just one year, and they were now the same height, their gazes meeting straight on, neither one able to claim the advantage. She wondered if Noah was as acutely aware of their new physical equality as she was. Once she could hug him and a child would hug back. Now the child was gone, his softness resculpted into muscle, his face narrowed to a sharp new angularity.

"Please," she said, still holding out the cap.

At last he sighed and jammed the cap over his dark hair. She had to suppress a smile; he did look dorky.

He had already started down the hallway when she called out: "Good-bye kiss?"

With a look of exasperation, he turned to give her the barest peck on the cheek, and then he was out of the door.

No hugs anymore, she thought ruefully as she stood at the window and watched him trudge toward the road. It´s all grunts and shrugs and awkward silences.

He stopped beneath the maple tree at the end of the driveway, pulled off the cap, and stood with his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold. No jacket, just a thin gray sweatshirt against a thirty-seven-degree morning. It was cool to be cold. She had to resist the urge to run outside and bundle him into a coat.

Claire waited until the school bus appeared. She watched her son climb aboard without a backward glance, saw his silhouette move down the aisle and take a seat beside another student -- a girl. Who is that girl? she wondered. I don´t know the names of my son´s friends anymore. I´ve shrunk to just a small corner of his universe. She knew this was supposed to happen, the pulling away, the child´s struggle for independence, but she was not prepared for it. The transformation had occurred suddenly, as though a sweet boy had walked out of the house one day, and a stranger had walked back in. You´re all I have left of Peter. I´m not ready to lose you as well.

The bus rumbled away.

Claire returned to the kitchen and sat down to her cup of lukewarm coffee. The house felt hollow and silent, a home still in mourning. She sighed and unrolled the weekly Tranquility Gazette. HEALTHY DEER HERD PROMISES BOUNTIFUL HARVEST, announced the front page. The hunt was on. Thirty days to bag your deer.

Outside, another gunshot echoed in the woods.

She turned the page to the police blotter. There was no mention yet of last night´s Halloween disturbance, or of the seven rowdy teenagers who´d been arrested for taking their annual trick-or-treating too far. But there, buried among the reports of lost dogs and stolen firewood, was her name, under VIOLATIONS: "Claire Elliot, age forty, operating vehicle with expired safety sticker." She still hadn´t brought the Subaru in for its safety inspection; today she´d have to drive the truck instead, just to avoid getting another citation. Irritably she flipped to the next page and was scanning the day´s weather forecast -- cold and windy, high in the thirties, low in the twenties -- when the telephone rang.

She rose to answer it. "Hello?"

"Dr. Elliot? This is Rachel Sorkin out on Toddy Point Road. I´ve got something of an emergency out here. Elwyn just shot himself."

"What?"

"You know, that idiot Elwyn Clyde. He came trespassing on my property, chasing after some poor deer. Killed it too -- a beautiful doe, right in my front yard. These stupid men and their stupid guns."

"What about Elwyn?"

"Oh, he tripped and shot his own foot. Serves him right."

"He should go straight to the hospital."

"Well you see, that´s…