In this gripping, fast-paced thriller, Dr. Robert "Doc" Lamb, trauma surgeon, former Army Special Forces Intelligence officer and CIA covert operative, swore he would never go back to his former life-not after his wife, Grace, was killed in a car bomb meant for him. But when Dr. Greg Johnson-the Broward County medical examiner, and an old friend-asks him to assist with the evaluation of a mysterious John Doe found floating in the Intracoastal Waterway, he begins to be pulled back into the world he had deliberately left behind. Identifying the John Doe sets a complicated investigation into motion, one that seems, implausably, to lead from a topless dancer, to a local drug house stocked with black market anesthesia drugs which appear to have originated in the Middle East, and then to a medevac jet leaving the country on the night of the victim's death. It also becomes clear the victim is one of many. The trail eventually leads Lamb to a private island in the southern Bahamas, to a stem cell research institute on a remote Caribbean island, and eventually to a hospital in the tribal highlands of Yemen. When he finds the clues are leading him out of the country, Doc turns to Isaiah Jefferson, his old CIA partner, confidante and friend for help. Doc had sworn he would never become involved with the CIA again, but as he probes deeper and deeper into the case-and as the dead man's wife pleads with him to find out why her husband was killed, and who killed him-he feels his own overwhelming grief and guilt over his wife's death driving him further and further into dangerous territory. In the process of gathering intelligence at the hospital in Yemen, he makes a grisly discovery -- one that explains everything. When his cover story starts to unravel, he begins, in order to escape and report his discovery, to recall and utilize all the skills he had deliberately buried along with his former life. Finding himself drawn inexorably back into the battle between good and evil on the world's stage, he is also forced to confront-once and for all-the demons living inside him. Bailey James, an orthopedic surgeon and fifth-generation Floridian, was born in Tampa, into a family of natural storytellers. He currently lives with his wife on Amelia Island. His experiences in medicine over more than thirty years have provided him with a deep catalogue of characters and situations he mines for his writing. While continuing to practice orthopedics, he spends most of his time writing the type of thrillers he's always enjoyed reading.
