Blindsight by Robin Cook

Robin Cook's Blindsight is a medical thriller involving pathologists, police, the mafia, and patients of an ophthalmologist. As the character's lives twine together in an effort to solve several connected deaths, disguisting and shocking secrets are discovered. As these secrets are developed, strange schemes are revealed.
This novel opens with the death of Duncan Andrews, a wealthy, connected man. Andrews' early death is shocking, not because of its untimely occurrence, but because he is killed by an overdose of illegal substances. His death is made even weirder by the fact that he was a clean cut man, and all those who knew him denied his use of drugs.
Laurie Montgomery, the pathologist assigned to Andrews, finds Andrews' case exponentially more intriguing as the days pass. Not only does this one highly esteemed man die of an overdose, but more people, exponentially more each day, are being taken to the morgue due to overdoses. There are many similarities between the victims and Laurie feels obligated to warn the public; when she does so, she puts both her life and her job in danger.
On the days where no overdose victims come in, Laurie helps Lou, a Manhattan police officer, solve the case of a young Italian-American boy named Frank. This boy is a mere eighteen years old at the time of his death; a time in which he is tortured and has his eyes severely damaged. As Laurie and Lou work together, they find that an opthalmologist, Dr. Scheffield, is a common factor between the drug overdoses, Frank, and other deaths that have occured within the last few days. As Lou looks even closer, he finds that Paul Cerino, the head of the mafia, is also a patient of the opthalmologist, and is in desperate need of corneal transplants.
Paul Cerino, the head of one of the two major organized crime groups, requires corneal transplants in both of his eyes due to acid burns. The burns originate from an attack by minors who follow Cerino's rival, Vinny. It soon becomes apparent that Frankie's torture and eye damage is an act of retaliation; others are sure to follow.
Laurie is fired for releasing medical information to the public, in an attempt to warn all of a tainted batch of narcotics, as she is being hunted down for knowing too much about the mafia. She continues to study the cases of the overdoses, and frequently contacts Lou; this persistence leads to her capture.
Laurie is taken to a fruit packing plant and is questioned while Lou if frantically searching for her in her old office. During her questioning, Laurie learns that all those who died via accidental overdoses had actually been murdered. Henchmen of Cerino have found organ donors, forcefully enter their homes and drug them. The people soon die, and, as long as the bodies are kept cool, new corneas are donated. These new corneas allow Dr. Scheffield to operate on many patients, such as Cerino.
Cerino and his men had been killing of rivals, innocents civilians, organ donors, and those in need of corneal transplants in an effort to speed up his wating period.

This novel is intriguing and exciting, and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested true medicine combined with fictional scenarios.