These 15 Medical Thrillers Will Have Your Head Spinning

Kira Peikoff merges together timelines from the past, present, and future in Mother Knows Best. After passing on a rare genetic mutation that kills her son, Claire is set on never getting pregnant again, but when she finds an ad online that could help mothers with genetic diseases birth healthy children, Claire finally agrees to seek fertility treatment. Needless to say, it doesn't go as she anticipates.

Stru Strumwasser's The Organ Broker follows the exhilarating story of "New York Jack," an underground black market organ dealer. For almost two decades, Jack has built a reputation sending affluent Americans in need of organ transplants to developing countries where they could purchase them on the spot. After the death of a client, Jack is forced to make the decision between a $2 million deal or participating in a murder.

Jay Kerk draws from real-life cases in his book A Predator and a Psychopath: A Dark and Twisted Psychological Thriller. In this well-researched, thrilling story, we meet Jason, who has just been committed to a mental institution, and a man he meets there named Jerry. We don't advise that the faint of heart pick this one up.

An accident turns deadly when Cap Duncan injures his leg on a run. Although surgeons are able to save the limb, the open wound becomes a playground for deadly microbial bacteria that begin to eat Cap alive. At the same time, over hundreds of miles away, a teenage girl is fighting against the same bacteria. In a third storyline, a doctor uncovers a secret society who plan to use health institutions as hostages in order to get what they want. New York Times bestselling author Michael Palmer delivers suspenseful, punchy writing in his book Resistant.

In Tess Gerritsen's brilliant novel Harvest, Dr. Abby DiMatteo dives into an investigation revealing deception, gritty lies, and murder. Abby makes a crucial decision to give a heart transplant to a dying 17-year-old instead of an affluent private patient, Nina Voss. After facing powerful repercussions, a new heart for Nina suddenly appears. When Abby realizes the heart did not come through the "proper channels," she makes it a mission to unveil the truth.

In her pulse-pounding thriller The Line Between, Tosca Lee emerges readers into an apocalyptic world where an extinct rare disease resurfaces due to melting Alaskan ice. For Wynter Roth, who has recently escaped a cult that taught her the world was evil and due for doom, this is something she's trained for her whole life.

Richard Preston's terrifying novel The Cobra Event will have your heart pounding. It takes place in New York City in the late '90s; 17 year-old Kate Moran wakes up feeling as if she has a head cold. Only hours later, she is convulsing, blood rushing from her nose, and, most bizarrely, has begun a "hideous process of self-cannibalization." When other similar cases start appearing, Dr. Alice Austen begins a journey to discover what is causing these deaths.

In her compelling fiction novel Oxygen, Carol Cassella shares the real-life-like fallout from an accidental operating room failure. Dr. Marie Heaton, a well-practiced anesthesiologist, is faced with huge repercussions after a disaster happens during a routine surgery. From malpractice lawsuits to questioning all her life decisions, Marie must face the choices she's made up until this point.

In David Walton's award-winning novel, The Genius Plague, brothers Neil and Paul Johns are pinned up against each other when a rare fungal infection begins to change humanity. Those who fall ill to the fungal infection recuperate with abilities and skills they didn't have before. Paul sees it as the next step in evolution, while Neil is convinced it's dangerous and unpredictable.

Judy Melinek's thrilling novel First Cut introduces us to Dr. Jessie Teska, San Francisco's latest medical examiner. After a suspected overdose case, Jessie rules that the victim seems to be the drug lord's attempt at a murder cover-up. Sticking to her integrity, Jessie sets out to uncover the truth, despite pushback from her colleagues.

Gretchen Hummel's complex postplague world in Dreamer's Island will have you captivated. Blair, a tour guide on "Devil Island," is in search of her kidnapped daughter. The quarantined island, said to "be all that's left of a future San Francisco," is known for its plague survivors and art community. When a doctor's youngest daughter contracts the plague, Blaire must use her skills to save her life and find her daughter.

In Sam Polakoff's novel Hiatus, a young scientific prodigy, still haunted by the premature death of his grandfather, sets out to make it possible for the dead to live again. The catch: they can only live once a year for 24 hours. Dr. Benjamin Abraham becomes the founder of Hiatus Centers, which allows families to reunite with loved ones on the other side in a controlled environment. Things take an awful turn when the technology reaches the wrong hands.

Kelly Parson will have you questioning the integrity of health institutions in her fiction novel Doing Harm. Dr. Steve Mitchell, a chief resident surgeon, is in charge of training a group of medical trainees. When a patient mysteriously dies, Steve realizes the patient was murdered, and the worst part, the killer is one of his staff. In a suspenseful game of cat-and-mouse, Steve must find a way to outsmart the killer before the cycle repeats.

Similar to his most famous work, Jurassic Park, Micro: A Novel is written with the same signature instant-classic style Michael Crichton is known for. The story follows a group of college graduate students to Hawaii, where they were promised to work for a biotech company. Once they arrive, they find themselves stuck in the rainforest with only their scientific knowledge to help them.

Robin Cook gives his exhilarating take on the world of gene modification in his book Pandemic. After an unidentified woman collapses and dies, medical examiner Jack Stapleton takes on the case to uncover the truth. Reminded by the 1918 flu pandemic, Jack autopsies the woman within hours. What he finds is a world of mystery that doesn't seem to add up.