'I want people to get lost in my stories'

 

“I just want people to get lost in the story and at the end kind of sag and say, 'That was fun.' It's hardly my desire for them to sit and think, 'What a great literary image.'” – Michael Palmer

 

Born in Springfield, MA on Oct. 9, 1942, Palmer leveraged his medical background as an Emergency Room doctor and Internist into writing 21 medical thrillers and three other mystery-thrillers, a number of which made the New York Times bestseller List.   His final novel (in 2018 and co-authored with his son Daniel) was The First Family.

 

Best known among his works were Side Effects, a novel based on covert Nazi medical testing in WWII, and Extreme Measures, featuring a promising young doctor who discovers criminal activities by his hospital’s leadership team.  Extreme Measures was also made into a popular movie.

 

In addition to his writing and medical practice, Palmer served as an associate director of the Massachusetts Medical Society Physician Health Services, devoted to helping physicians troubled by mental illness, physical illness, behavioral issues, and chemical dependency.  He died in October of 2013 after overcoming his own substance abuse issues and credited writing with getting him back on track.  He told the Associated Press that writing suspense thrillers served as a kind of long-term therapy for him before it became his profession.

 

“I loved the feeling of being in control," he said, "even when my life was not.”