DC heart surgeon Dr. Steven Leeds is suddenly besieged by a handful of immensely complicated heart attack and stroke cases, all caused by a rare arterial injury—a dissection. And all the victims have first received innocuous-looking cards announcing: “Your heart attack/stroke will arrive within one hour!”

Private detective Kirk Miner and FBI agent Jack Mulville investigate, and they immediately suspect Leeds’ former lover, Dr. Silvana Moretti, a brilliant research scientist who harbors a grudge against all the victims. Then when prominent people in the U.S. government begin to receive these same threatening cards and almost immediately experience these same deadly cardiac emergencies, it falls to the unlikely team of three—the headstrong FBI agent, the gifted private investigator, and the brilliant but conflicted heart surgeon—to find the actual perpetrators and to snuff out a catastrophic plot that only the medically astute can divine.

Dr. Cristina LePort’s story is vaguely reminiscent of the artfully nightmarish scenarios in Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp novels, combined with the fast-paced tempo of Robin Cook’s medical thrillers. Her Dissection features page-turning suspense, action-packed climaxes, and thoughtful character development, set against a believable backdrop of medical science informed by her long career as a cardiologist. Her style, though accessible, is more sophisticated than superficial, and, with strong protagonists on both sides of the gender divide, appeals to both male and female readers.