Patrick Douglas plunges readers into a disturbing near future where one journalist discovers how the rich buy health from the bodies of the poor. Equal parts thriller and morality tale, Thalamus is a gripping read about the perils of celebrity, the power of love and the price of selflessness in a world where even altruism is not as it seems. When a mysterious doctor claims to have cured cancer, playboy newscaster Robert Bender goes in for the story that will change him forever. To save the woman he loves, he offers to trade his life, but finds a fate worse than death. Stripped of his means of communication, he must use his wits, and shrinking body, to save himself -- and others.