Gina Mazzio Medical Thriller

Imagine. You have cancer. You've been blasted and wasted with chemotherapy, along with every other poison the doctors could find to kill malignant cells. Most days you're more dead than alive. Now there is one last chance for survival. Tomorrow you will be infused with your own, treated bone marrow frozen, stored, and safe in one of California's most prestigious hospitals. Then comes the note: "We have your marrow.... pay or die."

It's RN Gina Mazzio's wedding eve. But when she takes the week's final Ob/Gyn telephone advice call, a deadly serious male voice says, "She's all cut up." The police, the hospital administrator, and even Gina's fiance, Harry Lucke, insist it was only a crank call, some sicko getting his Friday evening jollies. Gina doesn't buy it. After a second similar call, at her home, she starts to link the calls and caller with a series of nurse disappearances. Instead of marriage and a honeymoon, Gina is drawn into the illicit, dangerous trade in human body parts.

Why does a hospital need bars on the windows? And why is the parking lot empty? As RNs Gina Fazzio and her fiancé Harry Lucke arrive for their new assignment as travel nurses, they suddenly have the chilling feeling of being about to enter a Stephen King novel - only in rural Nevada instead of Maine. This adventure's supposed to be a respite from San Francisco, with its numbing memories of murder and kidnapping, but they seem to have signed up to work at a hospital with no windows on the first floor and barred windows on the second. But a job's a job, and they know the patients in there need help - Alzheimer's patients. Only, the two nurse sleuths quickly discover, there aren't as many as there used to be. Are patients here dying at an alarming rate? Sure seems like it to Gina and Harry. This could be murder committed on a grand scale - a uniquely medical crime complete with cover-up. In this chilling work of medical suspense, they unravel a conspiracy conceived by Big Pharma and a mad scientist - a terrifying megalomaniac with way too much power, the classic Doctor-God ego, and a grisly hobby. Very grisly. Like all entries in the Gina Mazzio series, only fans of hard-boiled, hard-core medical crime series need apply. (Even then, they should expect a few goose bumps and maybe the odd nightmare.) Bone Pit will also appeal to those who love hospital mysteries, women sleuths, a bit of romance, a dash of humor, and crime fiction that spills ever-so-slightly into horror territory - not to mention action/adventure. If you like Tess Gerritsen, Robin Cook, Eileen Dreyer, Carolyn McCray, and especially Lisa Genova, this is your kind of mystery!

Murder, Mayhem, Medicine, and Mazzio. That's the thread that stitches together each of the Gina Mazzio, RN medical thrillers. RN Gina Mazzio returns to San Francisco's Ridgewood Hospital after a near-death experience in Nevada's desolate gold country. On her first day in the Ob/Gyn Women's Health Clinic, a co-worker suffers a mystifying post-abortion death due to sepsis. Two days later, the same thing happens to a clinic patient. Gina thinks it's an inside job, but gets no support for her theory. Convinced she's right, she risks everything to dig into the who and why of the deaths. She wants to know if someone is deliberately causing clinic patients to suffer horrible deaths. Fiancé Harry Lucke, who was with Gina in Nevada, is worried about her and postpones taking another travel nurse assignment. Instead, he signs on as an on-call ICU nurse at Ridgewood. To Gina's delight, and distress, her younger brother, Vinnie, shows up, back from his second tour of duty in the Middle East. He's received a medial discharge and is deeply depressed and suicidal. Vinnie brings news that Gina's ex-husband, Dominick, is out of prison and still enraged that she helped put him away for three years - for almost killing her. Word is that he broke parole and is on his way from New York to San Francisco. Gina sticks with her daring and danger-filled investigation. Her efforts bring her closer and closer to solving the sepsis deaths, but also make her the target of anti-abortion fanatics. As she closes in on the murderer, her ex-spouse arrives in San Francisco, hell-bent on killing her. Gina is faced with having to outmaneuver Dominick while racing to expose the murderer before either can trap and kill her.

A flu epidemic slams San Francisco, pushing medical facilities far beyond normal limits. The chaos masks deadly patient blood-letting by a sociopathic phlebotomist. RN Gina Mazzio, distracted by a breakup with her fiancé, and into a possible new romance, misreads a stalking that results in the murder of a nurse friend. Hot on the trail of the killer, and seeking a reason for unanticipated patient deaths, she becomes the prime target of the phlebotomist stalker.

Gina Mazzio, RN, and fiancé Harry Lucke are on the brink of getting married when a childhood friend relocates from the Bronx to San Francisco. Within days Gina's nurse friend is relating difficult-to-believe horror stories about her new employer, a cardiologist whom she suspects is involved in illicit and deadly medical practices. Gina soon discovers the stories are true-the doctor is not only acting in an unethical manner, he may also be complicit in two or three hideous murders. That knowledge quickly makes her the new target of the doctor-and a vicious hit man who is determined to hunt her down and kill her.

Passion, Jealousy, Greed, Love ... and Robotics. Back from an idyllic beach wedding and honeymoon on romantic Kauai, Gina and Harry have barely unpacked when Ridgewood Hospital sends them off on an intriguing assignment to learn about and report on surgical robotics at a Santa Cruz area hospital. Intrigue turns to fear as they're plunged into the midst of a deadly clash between hands-on-medicine traditionalists and those eager to dive headlong into the futurist whirlpool of robotics. The newlyweds are harassed, threatened, and kidnapped as a result of their efforts to discover who is hacking the robotic units and causing bloody mayhem in the surgery suites. Gina and Harry eventually report back to Ridgewood that robots are not only accurate, fast, and efficient, they can also be used to commit murder.

Long-time fans will rejoice-now we know love does conquer all. Gina is pregnant-this after doctors said it would never happen. But five months into her high-risk pregnancy, Gina's veteran brother, who suffers from PTSD, vanishes. Why has he abandoned ever