Vous voulez voir cette page en français ? Cliquez ici.

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
83 used & new from CDN$ 0.01
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
The Fifth Vial
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

The Fifth Vial (Mass Market Paperback)

by Michael Palmer (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
List Price: CDN$ 11.99
Price: CDN$ 10.79 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
You Save: CDN$ 1.20 (10%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca. Gift-wrap available.

Only 5 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

7 new from CDN$ 3.95 76 used from CDN$ 0.01
Looking for Textbooks? Save up to 37% on New--and up to 90% on Used
Hit the books in Amazon.ca's Textbook Store and save up to 37% on over 100,000 new textbooks shipped from and sold by Amazon.ca. For even bigger savings, get up to 90% off the list price of thousands of used listings. Learn more.

Frequently Bought Together

The Fifth Vial + The First Patient: A Novel + Second Opinion: A Novel
Total List Price: CDN$ 41.93
Price For All Three: CDN$ 32.94

Show availability and shipping details

  • This item: The Fifth Vial by Michael Palmer

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details

  • The First Patient: A Novel by Michael Palmer

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details

  • Second Opinion: A Novel by Michael Palmer

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Second Opinion: A Novel

Second Opinion: A Novel

by Michael Palmer
CDN$ 11.79
The First Patient: A Novel

The First Patient: A Novel

by Michael Palmer
3.0 out of 5 stars (3)  CDN$ 10.36
The Society

The Society

by Michael Palmer
CDN$ 8.99
Critical Judgment

Critical Judgment

by Michael Palmer
4.5 out of 5 stars (36)  CDN$ 9.89
Fatal

Fatal

by Michael Palmer
3.9 out of 5 stars (31)  CDN$ 9.89
› Explore similar items

Product Details

Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Palmer (The Society) tackles the illegal transplant organ trade in his entertaining 12th medical suspense novel. What do three very different people—Harvard medical student Natalie Reyes, Chicago PI Ben Callahan and scientific genius Joe Anson—have in common? Natalie, in Brazil for a conference, is attacked, hospitalized and loses a lung; Ben gets hired to discover how a mutilated anonymous body died; Joe, the inventor of an untested medical breakthrough, is forced into an operation for his life-threatening pulmonary fibrosis. All three seek answers connected to the Whitestone Foundation, a conglomerate that's a front for the Guardians, a secret cabal of medical specialists. At a hidden hospital in the Brazilian rain forest, Natalie and Ben learn of the Guardians' insidious methods. Huge sums are at stake as the arrogant Guardians make medical decisions largely motivated by greed. The action, which begins plausibly, becomes less so as the tension builds. Still, Palmer, himself an M.D., does a good job of informing the reader on an important ethical issue. 225,000 printing; author tour. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From AudioFile

This medical mystery includes international organ trafficking, a promising medical student with an attitude, and a private detective who is ambivalent about his chosen profession. J. Charles is adept at narrating the story, using a range of emotions, tone, and tempos that fit well. However, many of his character voices are not good matches to the characters themselves--the teen voice sounds too old, the Cape Verdian accent is not convincing, and some of the other foreign accents miss the mark. The story itself is interesting and provides an interesting look at the world of organ transplants. S.S.R. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
See all Product Description

Tag this product

 (What's this?)
Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.
Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item?

The Fifth Vial
69% buy the item featured on this page:
The Fifth Vial 4.5 out of 5 stars (2)
CDN$ 10.79
Critical
13% buy
Critical 4.5 out of 5 stars (2)
CDN$ 9.50
Crisis
10% buy
Crisis 3.7 out of 5 stars (3)
CDN$ 12.15
Foreign Body
5% buy
Foreign Body 2.7 out of 5 stars (3)
CDN$ 10.80
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
5 star:
 (1)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most helpful customer reviews

 
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A thrilling treatment of a VERY tired medical thriller plotline!, July 4 2009
By Paul Weiss (Dundas, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
When I read the dust flap for Michael Palmer's 12th medical suspense novel, "The Fifth Vial" and realized that it was about the illicit black market for transplant organs, I just about set it aside unread. Surely, Michael Palmer, himself an MD and an imaginative successful author of 11 previous medical thrillers could come up with a better plot idea than the hoary old chestnut of the black market trade in transplant organs! Well, the book was in my hands, my drink was already poured and the fire was lit ... I couldn't be bothered going back to my bookshelf for a second choice! And that, my friends, was a wonderful piece of serendipity!

Natalie Reyes, a medical student in Brazil for a conference, is attacked and hospitalized and loses a lung. Ben Callahan, a down on his luck, hard up private detective in Chicago, has been engaged by Organ Guard, anthropologist Alice Gustafson's watchdog agency, to investigate some apparent human rights violations and abuses in the procurement and transplantation of organs and tissues. Dr Joe Anson, a humanitarian, a doctor and brilliant researcher in Yaoundé, Cameroun, closes in on the completion of his research on Sarah-9, a drug that will save untold numbers of lives when it reaches world markets. But the race to complete that research may be lost to pulmonary fibrosis. Without a new lung, Anson's fate is all but sealed and the benefits of Sarah-9 will be lost to mankind.

OK, OK ... so Palmer's characters are a little bit overdone, a little bit stereotyped and cartoonish and little bit too heroic to be believable! But, the fact is, Palmer has also turned what could have been a potential rehash of old news into an exciting plot that moves at lightning speed with a techno-twist that will really raise your eyebrows. The ending, which ties up all the loose ends, is both brilliant and emotionally moving!

I was especially moved to see Michael Palmer's afterword in which he makes a personal plea to readers to become organ donors. For goodness' sake ... discuss the issue with your families, sign your organ donor cards, signify your intent on your drivers licenses, contact your local donor registries and make your death (which, much as we like to deny, is inevitable) all the more meaningful to the world surviving you. For what it's worth, this is also a personal sermon of sorts. I have asked my family, when I die, to give away every possible organ or piece of my body that will serve to make someone's life better and longer and to donate whatever is left to our local medical school for the purposes of teaching new doctors about anatomy. The best possible result of my death would having absolutely nothing left to bury or cremate!

Before all that has happened, you might take the time to read Michael Palmer's "The Fifth Vial". You won't regret it!

Paul Weiss
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Read. I couldn't put it down., Dec 23 2007
For a well-written fictional story, Palmer very nicely spins a rivetting tale with interesting characters. If you have hesitated before with respect to personal organ donation, this book may change your mind, for reasons that may surprise you. Although the fictional world of coincidences is highly present in this work, I do give it a high recommendation.
Cheers,
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
Only search this product's reviews


Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject














i.e., each book must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.