A good read.

I just finished reading a novel called The Fifth Vial, by Dr. Michael Palmer. I overheard several of my coworkers talking about this book and decided to check it out for myself.

I would classify this as somewhat of a paranoid thriller. The plot revolves around illegal organ trafficking taken to an extreme. Not only are organs bought and sold illegally, but those who are considered expendable are sacrificed to save the lives of those who are deemed more worthy (based on the cast system set up by Plato in The Republic). All of this is accomplished by a corrupt laboratory that collects an extra vial of blood from every patient and performs tissue typing. This is, of course, the thing that first attracted me to the novel -- not too many fictional books mention tissue typing, which is what I do every day. Overall, I thought this was a good read and would recommend it for anyone that enjoys medical fiction.