Bestselling suspense novelist Tess Gerritsen has carved a healthy niche for herself in a region previously populated only by Michael Crichton and Robin Cook. Her medical thrillers--Harvest, Life Support, Bloodstream and Gravity--have reviewers struggling for new adjectives beyond the standard "gripping," "riveting," and "harrowing." In Gerritsen's tense viral and microbial worlds of wonder and threat, tough-minded women overcome seemingly impossible odds: tracking down a black market in human organs in Harvest; uncovering sinister age-rejuvenation experiments in Life Support; battling a plague of violence in Bloodstream; and tackling an intergalactic contagion in Gravity. In all these works, Gerritsen, a former internist who cut her literary teeth penning Harlequin romance and intrigue novels, blends accurate scientific research, emergency room pacing, and edge-of-the seat suspense.

Gerritsen is fast to tell the reader, however, that her books are medical thrillers and not horror novels. Real science is at the heart...