SKEPTIC

A debut medical thriller in which the quick are not much livelier than the dead. To his astonishment, Dr. Michael Ballantine (he of the “chiseled Irish features”) becomes an inadvertent ghost-catcher. The nightmare starts when his best friend, Massachusetts Governor Andrew Kyle, gets blown to smithereens by a car bomb. Shortly after, Michael begins to hallucinate. Or if not hallucinate, then how else to explain it? The point is that no one but him seems to see that gray horse cantering along the hospital corridors. Likewise, the tall, gaunt Asian with the scary eyes. It turns out, however, that one of Michael’s research students has been doing some Frankenstein-like experimenting. And it’s she who’s come up with the astounding R-E solution (read: ghost potion) that accidentally got spilled into the lab’s air vents. Unaware of viral pitfalls, Michael has sniffed and caught a cold with a special side-effect, namely, the ability to activate spooks. Pretty exotic stuff, and some ill-intentioned Chinese want R-E to be theirs exclusively. Catch a ghost the same way you catch a cold? There has to be potential for evil in that. Enter Amber Chen (inscrutable, of course, but with “unending legs”). Born in Taiwan, she is now a legendary CIA operative. Which is to say a living, breathing spook. Amber and Michael, instantly drawn to each other, join forces in the hope of defeating the villainous Sheshen, point man for the wicked Chinese. Not so easy. Sheshen, who “has killed more people than any other operative in China’s history,” is legendary in his own right. But after the obligatory blood-drenched showdown, Amber, Michael, and Western Civ stand victorious—beneficiaries of some timely help from a friendly ghost named, well, not Casper. Maybe this sniff-a-virus-give-off-a ghost concept has scientific validity, maybe it doesn’t, but when the characters are flat, their dialogue wooden, and their behavior slavishly formulaic, who cares what emanates from them? (Author tour)