Life Support, by Tess Gerritsen, b-plus, narrated by George Guidall, produced by Simon and Schuster Audio, downloaded from audible.com.

Audible.com has started the republishing of early mysteries by famous authors. This book is one of the early ones written by Gerritsen before she started her famous series. These books are usually still medical thrillers and feature a woman physician. In this book, Toby Harper is emergency room doctor on the night shift. A series of odd events and patients with odd symptoms starts to occur. The first is a man who is brought into emergency. He’s very confused, doesn’t recognize anyone, isn’t oriented to time and place, and is brought in without any clothes. He keeps saying he wants his pajamas and to go to bed. He proceeds to have what looks like a seizure, and then, because another emergency in cardiac arrest arrived, he was left alone and he escaped from the hospital. Toby is blamed for neglecting him. Then, not much later in the month, another elderly man is brought in by his daughter. He doesn’t know his daughter or his grandchildren, is combative, doesn’t know where he is or who he is, seems to have a seizure. Toby contacts his regular doctor and also realizes the second man was a resident of the same high-priced nursing home as the first man. The doctor comes and is quite dismissive about this man’s problems and his death. This time Toby manages to contact the State Coroner’s office and he is autopsied against his doctor’s wishes. Some odd results of this autopsy and continued digging by Toby leads to the uncovering of a plot to get the “youth gene” which elderly men will cheerfully buy to look younger, and an experiment gone desperately wrong. A very good book.