Syndrome

They were promised a miracle cure for the deadly diseases destroying their lives. It seemed too good to be true, but to the desperate and dying it was the only chance for survival. Now they're part of a bizarre secret experiment that reverses the aging process - an experiment gone out of control. To stop the madness, one woman must enter a shocking nightmare world, where scientists control your body - and your mind - and living makes you beg for death . . .

In her mid-thirties, Alexa Hampton runs her own interior design firm in New York's Soho and has a daily run to keep fit. But now her world is narrowing as a childhood heart mishap increasingly threatens to lethally impact her life. Then out of nowhere her black-sheep younger brother appears and insists she go to a clinic in New Jersey to enter stem-cell clinical trials that are working wonders. The clinic is owned by her brother's boss, the eccentric millionaire Winston Bartlett.

Also interested in the clinic is the medical reporter Stone Aimes, who's hoping to penetrate Bartlett's veil of secrecy and find out what's going on there. He has personal as well as professional reasons for wanting to get closer to Winston Bartlett. He is also a long-ago lover of Alexa's and still carrying something of a torch for her though they have long been out of touch.

As Alexa investigates the clinic, their paths cross and together they slowly uncover the horrifying truth about what can happen when stem- cell technology is taken to its ultimate limit. A bizarre secret experiment to reverse the aging process has gone out of control. Winston Bartlett's young mistress, the TV personality Kristen Starr, had an anti-aging procedure that went awry and now all her cells are being replaced with new. The side effects are horrific. No one can stop what is happening: she is growing younger, destined to become a child again. Bartlett has had the same procedure and now he knows he's next. It's only a matter of time till he too regresses to childhood, and then . . . no one knows.

Alexa and Stone become prisoners in the clinic and then Bartlett and his Dutch medical researcher Karl van der Vliet begin a bizarre experiment on Alexa, hoping to produce antibodies to save Kristen, and Bartlett. In a stunning, blazing finale, Alexa turns the tables on them all, only to discover that she's now, suddenly unlike anyone else who has ever lived.

BOOKS BY THOMAS HOOVER

Nonfiction

Zen Culture

The Zen Experience

Fiction

The Moghul

Caribbee

Wall Street Samurai

(The Samurai Strategy)

Project Daedalus

Project Cyclops

Life Blood

Syndrome

All free as e-books at

www.thomashoover.info

THOMAS HOOVER

PINNACLE BOOKS Kensington Publishing Corp.

PINNACLE BOOKS are published by Kensington Publishing Corp. 850 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022

Copyright (C) 2003 by Thomas Hoover

Quote copyright (C) 2000 The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. First Pinnacle Books Printing: November 2003 ISBN:0-7860-1314-1

Key Words

THOMAS HOOVER (Author)

SYNDROME (Novel: Medical Thriller)

Heart disease, Alzheimer's, Stem Cells, Aortic Stenosis, Medical Columns, Aging, Fountain of Youth, Regenerative Medicine

_"The potential [of stem cells] for saving lives . . . may be unlimited. Given the proper signal or environment, stem cells, transplanted into human tissue, can be induced to develop into brain, heart, skin, bone marrow cells--indeed any specialized cells. The scientific research community believes that the transplanted stem cells may be able to regenerate dead or dying human tissue, reversing the progress of disease."

_Michael J. Fox

The New York Times (Op-Ed), November 1, 2000

SYNDROME

Chapter 1