A New non-series medical thriller
Dr. Alanna Davidson’s life is upended when her father is shot and paralyzed the same night a cutting-edge medical robot is stolen from his laboratory at DARPA. Three years later, the crime remains unsolved.
Alanna, now a senior resident at Los Angeles Memorial Hospital, is puzzled when high-profile patients die unexpectedly after routine surgeries and investigates the deaths.
At the same time, the LAPD is tracking a serial killer with a surgical signature who is leaving bodies in the most dangerous neighborhoods of the city.
When a Memorial resident becomes the newest victim, Alanna’s investigation leads to her father’s stolen robot and to a predatory healthcare company intent on taking over Memorial Hospital. But Alanna’s sleuthing draws the killer’s attention. Not only her career, but her life is now in danger.
“Smart, relentless, and terrifyingly plausible, “Remote Control” fuses cutting-edge medical technology with chilling suspense. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough watching Dr. Alanna risk everything to uncover a truth more sinister than you could ever imagine!” – Laurie Stevens, author of the Gabriel McRay Thriller series.
BUY NOW AT YOUR FAVORITE RETAILER –
Read Chapter One
March 20, 1992, 7:00 a.m.
Arlington, Virginia
Colonel Avram Davidson, MD, P H D, sat at the breakfast table, holding on to a mug of steaming hot, black coffee. His wife Miriam stood behind him, working her thumbs into his rock-hard trapezius muscles. Avram was a commanding figure, over six feet tall, tanned and well-muscled, his curly gray hair closely cropped, his green eyes alert under bushy black brows.
“Why are you so tense?” Miriam asked.
“I wouldn’t say tense. Terrified is more like it.”
“What’s going on, or would you have to kill me if you told me?”
Avram laughed. “Today’s the day I test my medical device on a live patient. If I fail, the patient could die.
Miriam wrapped her arms around him and kissed the top of his head.
“You aren’t going to fail. You’ve been practicing your technique on pigs for almost a year, and they are all alive and well, and rooting around in their pens. You are an exceptional surgeon, and the patient is lucky to have you. Finish your coffee and go to the O.R.”
“Have I ever told you how much I love you?”
“Every day.”
Avram pulled his car into his dedicated parking space and took a breath before stepping out into the bright, windy morning. He’d taken every possible precaution, but the operating room was a place where the unexpected could always happen. He’d have to be alert every second. The stakes were incalculable, and everyone on his team wascounting on him.
He paused outside the main door of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and glanced at his watch. He was early. The wind picked up, and a cloud momentarily covered the sun. With a shiver, he passed through the main entrance and the security check, heading to the operating room. Composing his face into an expression of quiet confidence, he put on his booties and cap, fastened his surgical mask, and walked in.
The elderly man lay on the table. The anesthesia and nursing teams worked on him, starting his I.V. and arterial line, washing his chest with sterile solution, and covering him with drapes. Avram walked over.
“How are you feeling?”
“Nervous.”
“We’re going to take good care of you, and you and I are going to make history today. Your surgery stands to benefit every veteran with heart disease. I can’t thank you enough for trusting us.”
“My son’s a doctor at Walter Reed. He checked you out and told me you were the best.”
Avram nodded at the anesthesiologist, who injected a sedative through the I.V. port. In minutes, the patient was asleep, and a breathing tube was inserted into his bronchus and attached to the anesthesia machine.
“You’re good to go,” the anesthesiologist said.
The patient, a retired veteran, was the perfect candidate for this very first robotic cardiac bypass surgery. His left main coronary artery was almost completely blocked, but the other major arteries would not require bypass.
Next to the operating table stood the robot, with multi-jointed arms, each fitted with surgical tips. One tip was designed to hold and manipulate the laparoscopic scope and camera. Another grasped tissue, and a third could cut and coagulate it. Avram had named the device ELECTRA, in honor of the very first humanoid robot introduced by Dr. Barnett at the 1939 World’s Fair.
The entire project staff was assembled, masked, and gowned: Major McGreavy, the systems software engineer, the anesthesiologist, and the O.R. techs. Another cardiac team was waiting, prepared to do the bypass with a traditional large chest incision, should the robot be unable to complete the procedure in a minimally invasive fashion.
“Ready, sir?” the O.R. tech asked, as she adjusted the lights on the surgical field.
Avram gave the thumbs-up sign. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
The tension decreased a fraction as he walked into the adjacent room, removed his mask, and sat at his computer. At his fingertips were two unique pieces of hardware. They allowed the Colonel’s hands to perform cutting and rotating motions. They were also fitted with sensors, enabling him to feel the tissue remotely. Grasping the instrument handles, he adjusted them to position the robot’s arms over the patient.
The cardiac surgeons in the operating room had made three tiny incisions on the man’s chest and inserted hollow metal tubes through which the robot could place its arms with its instruments.
The laparoscope, a device with a fiber optic light and miniature video camera, was held by the first of the three robotic arms. The others, with their instruments, wereinserted through the remaining two tubes.
Avram would operate from his office, constantly watching the video image supplied by the laparoscope’s mini camera.
The robotic arm holding the laparoscope moved forward, and gas was inserted to collapse the left lung. The underside of the chest wall came into view. Avram’s heart rate sped up, and he could feel beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He took some deep breaths, waited for his pulse to slow down, and made sure his hands were steady.
He’d done this procedure on animals more times than hecould remember. He knew how to do this. He needed to stay calm.
He traced the path of the left mammary artery on the chest wall, dissected it carefully, freeing a large portion so he could connect it to the coronary artery past the point of blockage. He placed a clamp to control bleeding and cut theartery at its far end.
“I’m ready to bypass,” Colonel Davidson said, through the microphone.
The anesthesiologist infused heparin. Avram’s next job would be to join the mammary artery to the coronary artery past the point of obstruction. This was the part of the
surgery that had always required a large incision dividing the breastbone, and a highly skilled microsurgeon working with magnifying glasses. Performing this procedure in a minimally invasive fashion had been beyond human abilities. ELECTRA changed the odds. At the operating table, the robot paused, and another surgeon made a two-inch incision over the beating heart, exposing the blocked artery.
The first stitch would be critical. The two vessels had to be sewn together with individual sutures, spaced closely enough to prevent leakage. The thread was as fine as a cobweb. Tying surgical knots long-distance was the most challenging part of the procedure. He’d practiced it for months. With precise, delicate motions, he cinched his first knot tight.
One stitch at a time, Avram sutured, tied, and cut his suture, an exercise in hand-eye coordination that left sweat pouring down his forehead. As the last stitch was placed, he removed his hands from the instruments, took a deep breath, and put them in his lap so that no one could see he was trembling with fatigue and relief. He removed the clamp from the mammary artery, resuming blood flow to the heart, and his repair appeared more perfect than he could ever have accomplished without ELECTRA.
From the operating room came a round of cheering that he could hear through his closed door.
Excerpt from Remote Control, by Paula Bernstein
© 2026 M&Z PRESS. All Rights Reserved.