Finally! Time to Read: Michael Palmer's THE SECOND OPINION

For those of us familiar with Palmer's previous novels, The Second Opinion (2009) will bring us to familiar territory:  the medical world of Boston, its hospitals, surgeons, and mysteries, manipulations, and secret agendas cropping up within this very specialized community.

But this novel is unique because the author draws on his family's experiences with Asperger Syndrome.  The Palmer's son, now 18, was diagnosed at the age of 4 and is, in Palmer's words, "a joy to be around and who has a boundless future." Thus, the author's deeply personal knowledge of the disorder contributes to his characterization of Thea Sperelakis, an  adult AS who is also a brilliant doctor with Doctors Without Borders. She is called home when her father, a famous diagnostic physician, lies in a coma after being struck by a hit-and-run driver.

As she tries to help her father and unravel the mystery surrounding his accident, she also puzzles through the implications of another patient, Hayley Long, who has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. A contract killer, the complications of two brothers and a sister with their own agendas, and Thea's constant effort to read motives, manipulation, and misdirection by those around her give this novel a depth that this reader has not seen before in the Palmer medical mysteries.

Questions about Asperger Syndrome arise as the reader compares Thea's fictional  reactions and struggles to those of other adults who cope with the same disorder in our real world .  As a postscript to the novel, Palmer provides answers to many questions that we have about Asperger's and the bright, wonderful people who cope with its challenges while accomplishing  many wonderful things in life.