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"The Protocol" This work was translated into Chinese for world distribution. ISBN: 7-80656-043-4 Beijia Publishing House |
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About the Author... Keith Barton
Keith Barton grew up on the Eastern Shore of Virginia on Chincoteague Island where the ponies roam and swim from Assateague island to his birthplace each year. The son of a naval officer, he moved every three years until his teens and enjoyed the water on the East and Gulf Coasts including: New Orleans, Louisiana, Saint Simons Island, Georgia, Virginia Beach, Virginia, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda. When Keith is not writing part-time, he pursues his clinical psychology practice in Houston, Texas. He is married to his high school sweetheart, Jenny, and they have two grown children, Greg and Kim. Greg works for Exxon in Houston as an environmental engineer and Kim is in her first year of medical school at Vanderbilt. When he is not writing, he enjoys golf and church work. He has attended writing workshops and entered several local contests in Houston. He prefers suspense thrillers and has just completed his fourth book in a little over a year.
A description of The Protocol
The famed Texas Medical Community is seduced by a sociopathic doctor, beset with the delusion that he will invent the next-generation anti-psychotic drug to reduce violence in humans. Robert Appleton is a promising young psychiatrist who has developed the new drug, but he has a secret past. He manipulates the FDA drug research protocol to facilitate the expected outcome that will bring millions of dollars to Spencer Pharmaceuticals and to himself. However, three patients die from self-inflicted trauma and Lieutenant Mark Johnson of the Houston Police Department is called in to investigate the mysterious deaths. He is ably assisted by Harold Lucero of the sex crimes division to track the psychiatrist's secret obsession with young women whom he entices to become research subjects in his crazed experiments to study violent behavior in humans. The reader is taken through the lurid world of sex, drugs, and murder as Johnson stalks the socially inept doctor to nail him on murder one charges.
The action takes an international twist when Appleton discovers that his research colleague actually works for the CIA and that the drug is actually intended to combat terrorism. The FDA and CIA have conspired to use Appleton's drug in an intelligence mission in Jakarta, Indonesia. Unaware that Appleton has manipulated the research protocol to produce favorable results, the lives of American agents are threatened as they attempt to destabilize an Islamic terrorist group, responsible for bombing U.S. Embassies and intercontinental flights. The action moves quickly between Houston, Jakarta, Geneva, Phoenix, Antigua, and Los Angeles, as Johnson attempts to bring the deranged doctor to justice. Johnson's actions are compromised by the CIA's need for Appleton's expertise to secure the safety of American agents in Southeast Asia and Indonesia.
Corporate greed, egomania, and deception merge in this suspense thriller that relies on vivid psychological profiles, police work, and recent psychiatric research in brain chemistry.
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