1. What inspired you
to write this book?
For several decades, medical thriller stories
have captivated readers, thanks to authors like Robin Cook. I’ve read books of
this genre as well as other thriller subgenres, like crime thrillers, enough to
become inspired to write my own thriller stories. Given my background in
medicine, it’s natural for me to contribute my own medical thrillers. That’s
when I saw an opportunity.
While medical thrillers have been around, I
haven’t noticed the genre evolving all that much. I was getting tired of
rehashed genre tropes, like doctors committing ethical violations. I also saw
up close what the everyday work of a doctor is like. These things made me
brainstorm medical thrillers that really celebrate doctors as frontline heroes
as well as look outside the medical community for villains who would disrupt
healthcare. One such idea: a computer hacker killing patients by altering
digital medical records, creating medical errors that have devastating
consequences for patients and their doctor. It’s a premise we have not really
seen before in medical thrillers.
2. What exactly is it about
and who is it written for?
My debut medical thriller, Doctor
Lucifer, centers on a hospital internist named Mark Lin. He is cynical
and disillusioned about humanity, given his early life tragedies and grueling
medical training. It is this doctor who is the target of a computer hacker
named Doctor Lucifer. Things are really bad for Dr. Lin from the start, because
three patients crash nearly at the same time, and he comes to realize that
there are errors in their medical records that he knows he didn’t make.
Eventually, the story becomes a game of cat-and-mouse as Mark teams up with two
of the hospital’s information technology specialists to outwit Doctor Lucifer
before that hacker could kill another patient.
This is no doubt a book for any fans of medical
thrillers. In addition, I believe this story has additional appeal for people
who work in healthcare and for the Asian American community who would like to
see more representation of themselves in fiction.
3. What do you hope
readers will get out of reading your book?
First off, I want readers to be entertained,
enjoying the rollercoaster ride of ups, downs, twists, and turns that I have
laid out. Beyond that, I hope that readers also come away with a better
understanding and appreciation of how doctors actually work in real life. For
too long, medical drama shows on television have been criticized by healthcare
professionals for missing the mark on medical accuracy. I want to tell a
medical story that portrays real medicine as I understand it from my days in
medical training.
4. How did you decide on your book’s title and
cover design?
I knew that I wanted the title to reflect the
villain’s moniker, one that would be a reference to the devil. There are
several names for the devil, like Satan, but I ultimately settled on Lucifer
because that name also refers to the demon associated with pride, one of the
Seven Deadly Sins. By calling my novel Doctor Lucifer, the title
can reference both the villain as well as one of the key themes in the story:
arrogance in medical professionals.
For the cover design, I wanted a look that tells
readers what the book is about while also making them curious. I decided that
it should have two elements: (1) a patient in a hospital bed, to indicate that
it’s a medical tale and (2) a computer monitor showing a caduceus dissolving
into ones and zeroes, related to the cybersecurity aspect of the story. I had a
cover designer incorporate these elements and he did a great job with it.
5. What advice or words of
wisdom do you have for fellow writers – other than run!?
Don’t stop. In other words, don’t stop writing
your books and don’t stop marketing them. Just keep going and enjoy the ride.
6. What trends in the book
world do you see — and where do you think the book publishing industry is
heading?
At this point, the entire book industry has
become heavily democratized. In other words, after decades of major publishers
being the primary means of publishing books, the tools for publishing have
become so accessible to the general public thanks to advances in technology. I
cannot imagine the industry going back to the way it used to be. The genie of
independent publishing has left the bottle, so to speak. This new world of book
publishing provides both exciting opportunities for aspiring writers as well as
great challenges related to the sheer competition in getting one’s work in
front of readers. As someone who could not get a literary agent after trying
for two years, I had no choice but to self-publish, but it’s a route that I
have now accepted and embraced because I cherish my control over my own work.
7. Were there experiences in
your personal life or career that came in handy when writing this
book?
Much of my life and career experiences have
made their way into my novel. If anything, reading the novel to see how the
main character had gone through life before and how he deals with events in the
current story is sort of a way to know who I had been earlier in my life.
8. How would you describe
your writing style? Which writers or books is your writing similar to?
I would describe my writing style as intense,
vivid, methodical, and always moving forward. My writer’s voice developed
mainly from looking back on certain tough moments in my earlier life. It would
end up sounding sort of like the tone of hardboiled crime novels. Funny thing:
I had a friend who even said that my writing style seems to be similar to that
of a specific novel by Dean Koontz, whose books I still have not read as of
today.
9. What challenges did you
overcome in the writing of this book?
The main challenge I had while writing my book
was self-doubt. Would anyone actually enjoy this story, or would they find it
boring? Will they sympathize with the main character, or will they hate him? I
got past that just by proceeding to publish and accept whatever happens. To my
delight, there are plenty of readers who have enjoyed my novel, appreciated my
main character, and were able to see themes I laid out in the story.
10. If people can buy or read
one book this week or month, why should it be yours?
Just look at the many positive reviews I
received from professional reviews, associated with sources like Publisher
Weekly’s BookLife, Kirkus Reviews, and Foreword magazine., as well as
readers. Doctor Lucifer has been out for only one-and-a-half
months and it’s doing fairly well in terms of audience reception. Based on the
overall response, I think this is a medical thriller that you will enjoy and,
with its pacing, likely read nonstop in a relatively short time.
About The Author: Anthony Lee has a unique background in
medicine. After graduating from medical school, he switched from clinical
medicine to health technology assessment, analyzing new medical tests and
treatments in a career spanning over 15 years. After years of brainstorming his
own story ideas, he finally wrote and self-published his first medical thriller
novel, Doctor Lucifer, in 2024. He lives in Northern California. For
more information, please see: anthonyleebooks.com and spoutible.com/AnthonyLee
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About Brian
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Brian Feinblum should be
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copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog ©2024. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now
resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue
dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog. His writings are often featured in The
Writer and IBPA’s The Independent. This
award-winning blog has generated over 3.9 million pageviews. With 4,900+ posts
over the past dozen years, it was named one of the best book marketing blogs by
BookBaby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs and recognized by Feedspot in 2021 and 2018
as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by
www.WinningWriters.com as a “best resource.” For the past three decades,
including 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book
publicity firm, and director of publicity positions at two independent presses,
Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres,
right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark
Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay,
Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan
RoAne, John C. Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler. He
hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and
has spoken at ASJA, Independent Book Publishers Association Sarah Lawrence
College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association,
Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, Morgan James Publishing, and
Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. His letters-to-the-editor have
been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY
Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester) and The Washington
Post. His first published book was The Florida Homeowner, Condo, &
Co-Op Association Handbook. It was featured
in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald.
