Media

Transplant:

ISBN 978-1-894689-10-6 TRADE PAPERBACK
6 x 9 • 320PP • FICTION • SRP US$ 17.95

EXCERPT

Kidnapped by a ruthless billionaire for whom he has refused to perform an unethical operation, Yale Medical School's senior heart surgeon Athan Carras has been forced to work like a field slave on a Haitian plantation. One night, he escapes and, dressed in rags, struggles across a dark pasture...

He turned his head to look from the corner of one eye. Trees, he thought, and where there are trees and cattle there should be a farm. He went forward faster now and before too long he became aware of something that was definitely man-made stretching off to either side of him. Hands outstretched before him, he found a chain-link fence, and when he reached up it was taller than he was.

"Yes!" he said, under his breath. A fence of this quality meant that the farm it surrounded was no mere hovel next to a half-acre vegetable patch. This was the home of a relatively rich Haitian; chances were good it would contain some way of communicating with the world -- a radio or radiophone. Carras need only find the gate and call out to be admitted.

He followed the fence to his right. It went on a long way and his hopes rose higher. Someone with a farmhouse and outbuildings this extensive might even have a satellite phone.

The fence finally turned a corner. Here the ground outside was no longer pasture. With his peripheral vision, Carras saw a wide dark strip. A road, he thought, but when he went to investigate he found it was not asphalt but hard-packed soil running straight in either direction. Not far off there was a gray shape where the dark strip ended.

It was strange that he could see that far, Carras thought. When he turned back toward the fence, looking straight on, he could almost make it out. He looked up at the sky and saw a lightening of the darkness down at the far end of the earthen road where it cut between more trees.

The moon, he thought and even as he formed the words in his mind, the first yellowy sliver of light rose almost at the end of the road. No, not a road -- it's an airstrip. When he looked to the crude runway's other end he saw that the gray object was the light plane he had seen the day before.

This was the farm he'd hypothesized. Dr. Athan Carras had come back to civilization.

He decided to wait until the moon was well up then search for a gate in the fence. He watched as the glowing orb rose sedately into the sky, its early gold becoming first silver then white as it climbed. When it was completely clear of the horizon, Carras looked to the fence and noticed that it was topped along its entire length with razor wire.

"That's funny," he said aloud and the sound of his voice prompted a deep wuff! from somewhere beyond the fence. The first bark was followed by another, then other dogs took up the alarm. There were many of them, and they sounded big and not friendly.

A light came on somewhere through the trees beyond the fence -- a bright light, the kind that nervous homeowners install on their garages and front walks in high crime areas. Another light came on, and now the dogs were going crazy.

He heard a door open then someone was yelling at the animals. The volume of the canine riot dropped, and Carras was about to call out, /"Au secours!"/ the French for help, when he realized that the voices he was hearing were not French or Haitian Kreyol. They were Spanish.

His Spanish was rusty. He knew Ayudame, por favor was the same as au secours and he was going to try that when some part of him finally made the connection: Spanish voices; razor wire; vicious dogs; an airstrip and a small plane out in the middle of nowhere.

This was no farm. This was a way station on the cocaine highway from Colombia across the Caribbean to America. The shouting men would not help him contact the authorities. They would shoot him and feed him to the monsters who were baying for his blood.

Carras ran for the only cover he could see -- the plane. He raced around its tail which stood as tall as he was and froze there, gasping for breath and listening. He heard more Spanish and the sound of metal ringing against metal, followed by the skitter of clawed paws on hard earth.

They had let the dogs out.

Carras had once seen a rabbit run down by a dog. The prey had had a fifty foot lead but the pursuer, one of those big yellow mongrels that make lovable pets, closed the gap in seconds. Though the rabbit jinked and dodged, the dog ran it down, sank its long fangs into the doomed animal's hindquarters and with a blur of head shakes tore the rabbit almost in half. When the teeth sank in, the victim let loose a high-pitched shriek that had pierced Carras's heart. He'd had no idea rabbits could scream.

In peak condition and wearing two hundred dollar Nikes, Carras knew he could not have outrun a pack of dogs. Exhausted and with rags on his feet, the best he could hope for was that the men would shoot him before the animals could do much damage.

He heard a skreek of unoiled hinges as the gate opened. The dogs had stopped barking. They were making an eager gobbling sound, their claws clicking and scrabbling on the hard pack. Their noses had told them where he was. They were coming.

Technothriller. A top heart surgeon, kidnapped, seduced, threatened with an unspeakable loss -- all to make him perform a forbidden procedure. Cutting-edge technology. Fast read.

John A. Elefteriades, M.D. is Chief of Cardiac Surgery at Yale University. He is author of House Officer Guide to ICU Care , Your Heart: An Owner's Guide , Acute Aortic Disease , and The Women's Heart: An Owner's Guide

Pulitzer Prize awarded to Wall Street Journal series highlighting Dr. Elefteriades' research.

"Heart-rending, intriguing medical mystery. The most difficult challenges in medical care are not the result of technical advances, they are the result of the intense human commitments and moral dilemmas that these advances make possible." --Harold W. Baillie, Provost, University of Scranton

"TRANSPLANT is a compulsive pleasure.

Brilliant heart surgeon Athan Carras is in midlife
crisis and is tempted by a ruthless billionaire to do
the unthinkable. Seduction becomes coersion in this
fast-paced thriller that cuts to core questions of ethics
in modern medicine."

-- Robert Picardo
Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH) also known as The Doctor, Star Trek: Voyager

(c) http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:TheDoctor.jpg

"A gripping tale of violence and intrigue set within the world of transplant
surgery, Dr. Elefteriades makes abstract ethical questions about life and death
bristle with urgency. This is a skilled and accurate depiction of heart
transplant and a horrifying scenario that could occur when money and power join
forces."

Mariell Jessup MD
Professor of Medicine
Director, Heart Failure/Transplant program
University of Pennsylvania

"I read Transplant, and it’s just terrific—a page-turning thriller with compelling characters, vivid medical science, tough ethical questions, and emotional heft!"

James Bundy
Dean of the Yale School of Drama

April 14 2009 -- Dr. John Elefteriades will be on the Faith Middleton Show, WNPR radio in Connecticut discussing his new book Transplant

April 19 2009 -- Dr. John Elefteriades and his new book Transplant will be featured in the actual USA Weekend magazine reaching 50 million readers

April 20-22 -- Dr. John Elefteriades' Transplant will be the IBPA booth at the London Book Fair. Come by to examine the book and to meet Dr. John Elefteriades himself!!

April 26 2009 - Ad in New York Times Book Review

April 27, interview on Vinnie&Company, Sirius Satellite Radio national morning show

April 27, booksigning at Partners&Crime Booksellers in Manhattan
(click on the poster to download a high resolution printable poster)

May 2009 -- A feature on Transplant will run in the May 2009 issue of The Big Thrill, the online newsletter of The International Thriller Writers Association

May 7, 2009 -- RJ Julia Independent Booksellers in Madison, CT -- World-renowned doctor and chief of cardiac surgery at Yale University Dr. John Elefteriades presents Transplant, his fiction debut and a fast paced medical thriller that will make your heart stop.