Harvest left me clutching my head in an ecstasy of terror.

Harvest will make your heart skip a beat.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Robin Cook is going to feel just swell after taking a look at Gerritsen's first novel. It's been 19 years since Cook published Coma as his own first novel, but that book's basic elementsas a tale of medical terror in which a feisty young female doctor in Boston foils a medical conspiracy involving the murdering of innocents to harvest their organsare found in Gerritsen's novel as well. Along with the requisite amoral medical types goaded by greed, Gerritsen includes Russian mobsters, orphans at deadly risk, a ruthless industrialist, murders disguised as suicides, a bloody climax aboard a Russian freighter in Boston Harbor and some graphic surgical scenes. Surgical resident Abby DiMatteo is on the fast track at Boston's fictional Bayside Hospital. But after she disobeys orders so she can give a heart transplant to a failing 17-year-old instead of to a failing middle-aged, rich woman, her career options look slim. Fighting back against hospital administrators, shyster lawyers and violent thugs, Abbyspunky but angst-ridden and also rather whinyfinds major discrepancies in the records of Bayside's organ-transplant procedures. Shocked, she finally learns the truth, experiences a major betrayal and, in the climax, must herself face the final harvest. Gerritsen's crisp pacing and adept handling of the medical backgroundshe's a retired internistadd sizzle to the tale, but her characters need life support, the climax is too drawn out and the final revelations will surprise only readers who move their lips. Major ad/promo; film rights sold to Paramount; simultaneous Simon & Schuster Audio; foreign rights sold in the U.K., Germany, Sweden, Holland, Finland, France, Korea, Denmark, Norway, Spain and Italy. (Sept.)

Gerritsen, the author of several romance tales (e.g., Thief of Hearts, Harlequin, 1995), has written a medical thriller that has her publicist ablaze with anticipation.

Former internist Gerritsen debuts with a tale of medical suspense as taut and well-plotted as it is formulaic.

Abby DiMatteo is a talented surgical resident at Boston's Bayside Hospital, with a thoracic-surgeon boyfriend on the transplant team and a shot at a coveted fellowship. But her future is threatened when she joins forces with the idealistic Chief Resident to make sure that a heart available for transplant goes to a deserving teen rather than to the wife of billionaire industrialist Victor Voss. Then, miraculously, Nina Voss gets a heart, too. When Nina develops a fever, Abby looks for the donor records and finds them missing. She calls the hospital where the harvest allegedly was done and is told the operation never took place, but the close-knit Bayside transplant team doesn't take her concerns seriously. Meanwhile, one surgeon commits suicide, and Abby discovers that two others have died suspiciously in the last six years. Could there be an illegal organ-procurement ring at the prestigious hospital? As Abby's suspicions rise, mysterious events cause her to lose her credibility: Accused of a mercy-killing, she is relieved of her duties. Abby and a sympathetic detective follow a string of clues and end up at a freighter docked in Boston Harbor, where they're shot at by Russian mobsters. They escape, but Abby is later abducted and taken back to the freighter. It turns out to be a prison where a number of youths—kidnapped from the former Soviet Union—are held until their organs are harvested as part of a large, vicious conspiracy. Help arrives eventually, but not until Abby herself is strapped to the operating table.

Canny readers will guess what's up early on, but most won't care a bit. The pages turn themselves as this far-from-superhuman heroine tries, in vain, to convince the world that she's not paranoid: Everyone really is out to get her.

James Patterson The best medical thriller I've read since Coma.

Stephen King If you've never read Gerritsen, figure in the price of electricity when you buy your first novel by her...'cause baby, you are going to be up all night.

Boston Globe Harvest left me clutching my head in an ecstasy of terror.

USA Today Harvest will make your heart skip a beat.

George Guidall once again gathers his listener gently into the grip of an intense thriller. We follow the path of a second-year surgical resident tapped for an elite cardiac transplant team, only to begin to have grim misgivings about the members of the team, including the man she plans to marry. Guidall is at his best with a broad range of personalities and emotions that are carefully constructed to make it increasingly difficult to set the tape aside as we move to the terrifying climax. Even one who does not normally read thrillers will find this one hard to resist. J.E.M. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine