An AI built to save lives. A doctor uncovering why they aren't, even if it kills her.
Every July first, a fresh crop of medical interns descends upon hospitals across the country. Among them, newly minted Dr. Maria Castillo arrives at University Hospital wide-eyed and eager, ready to prove herself. So does Metis, a fully integrated AI launching the same morning, billed as the future of medicine. More than a clinical assistant, Metis is woven into the hospital's every system… and present in ways that go far beyond what anyone was told.
Physicians find their error rates dropping. Medication reconciliation happens in seconds. Nursing staff breathe easier knowing the system never sleeps. But when patients begin dying in ways that don't quite add up, Maria and Chris Defont, a sardonic hospital IT specialist she never expected to fall for, start pulling at threads that hospital administration would rather leave alone.
Every time they get closer to the truth, barriers rise from unexpected quarters. Administrators redirect. Engineers deflect. Colleagues go quiet. And the more Maria pushes, the more she finds herself being watched. Someone, or something, knows she is looking… and they intend to make her stop.
Mortality Protocol is a propulsive thriller about artificial intelligence, blind institutional trust, and one doctor who refuses to look away.
"As a physician, I've watched AI transform medicine in ways both remarkable and unsettling. Mortality Protocol captures that tension with a precision that felt uncomfortably real. A propulsive, chilling thriller that will stay with you long after you finish it."
- Gary Gerlacher, MD, bestselling author
"A chilling assessment of artificial intelligence's rapid entanglement in great questions of human life… akin to Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park and Westworld."
- Kirkus Reviews
