Book list
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Vectors, transmission, antibodies, and vaccines: the language of a pandemic has become all too familiar to us after the rise of COVID-19, but Martin's latest novel, following The Antidote for Everything (2020), began to take shape before our current world was formed. As this tale charts the rise of artiovirus, an infectious agent, it follows several doctors as they confront the biggest professional and personal challenges of their lives. From the horrors of emergency room medicine to the heartbreak of infertility, each physician is tested far beyond what they imagined when they entered medical school together. Shepherding readers through the impact of Patient Zero through the still-quaking aftershocks of infection, Martin dives deep into a world that seems to run parallel to our own. With echoes of Richard Preston's The Hot Zone, John M. Barry's The Great Influenza, and Anna Hope's Expectation, Doctors and Friends is precise in details but sweeping in scope and impact. With an innate understanding of emergency room medicine, the inner workings of government agencies, and the complexities of decades-long friendships, Martin's novel is compelling to its core. Particularly poignant in our current predicament, it lays bare the consequences of misinformation and vaccine hesitancy.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Seven medical school friends navigate the emotional and physical devastation wrought by a global pandemic. Written before the Covid-19 pandemic, this book navigates the implications of a global pandemic on seven midcareer doctors who first became friends in med school. Kira Marchand is an infectious disease specialist who works for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta; Candee Compton-Winfield is an emergency room doctor in New York City; Hannah Geier is an OB-GYN in San Diego, California; Georgia Brown is a urologist in San Diego; Vani Darshana is an internist in Berea, Kentucky; Zadie Anson is a pediatric cardiologist in Charlotte, North Carolina; and Emma Colley is a trauma surgeon in Charlotte. The friends are on vacation in Spain and Morocco when the pandemic first strikes, and the story follows them and the impact that the artiovirus, CARS-ArV, has on their group, the cities they live in, and their families. Kira, Candee, and Hannah are point-of-view main characters. The narrative arc of the story follows Kira, the infectious disease specialist, who finds herself in a situation in which she has to choose between the lives of her two children. Covid-19 does not exist in these pages, but it will be impossible for readers to divorce their own pandemic experiences from those they are reading about. Much time is spent discussing the virus and its effects, both initial and long-term. For some readers, the lengthy descriptions of the artiovirus and its medical effects might be too much, while others will find the details just right. The idealized societal and governmental response, however, will ring false to many. A well-written apocalyptic tale about a global pandemic that is all too realistic. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly
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Martin’s riveting latest (after The Antidote to Everything) focuses on a group of doctors during a pandemic. Infectious disease expert Kira Marchand is on vacation in Spain with her friends from medical school when she hears about an unusual illness, and the group encounters two sick people. The artiovirus, which in some cases leads to a rapid-onset dementia dubbed “AAROD” (“with apologies to Alex Rodriquez,” Kira quips), turns out to be in the family that Kira and her erstwhile lover Declan, who develops vaccines, have been studying. In the days before and after their returns from their trip, the group of friends and their loved ones are felled by varying degrees: Compton, an emergency-room doctor in New York who recovers from a case of artiovirus she contracted in Spain, struggles with losing her husband and caring for her children while also working nonstop. Hannah, an OB-GYN, finally conceives after trying for years, and looks forward to delivering their friend Georgia’s baby, but the virus puts them in danger. Kira, who advises the White House à la Anthony Fauci, reflects on a heart-wrenching ethical dilemma involving her ailing son and daughter. An ER doctor, Martin fills the hospital scenes with vivid descriptions and moving moments. This fully realized account of a fictional pandemic manages to convey the deeply personal as well as the bigger picture. (Nov.)

Library Journal
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Martin's (The Antidote for Everything) latest novel believes that friends can bring each other back from the depths; protagonist Kiki Marchand, a doctor, knows this all too well, having relied for years on her six friends from med school. On their annual trip, including a cruise up the Strait of Gibraltar to Tangier, they encounter a virus that will put their friendships to the test. Infectious disease specialist Kiki knows an artiovirus when she sees one; five of her friends contract the virus on their trip, spend 21 days in quarantine, then arrive back in the States to help fight the horrible virus and keep their families safe. The artiovirus will take each of Kiki's friends on a journey from which no one will return unscathed. VERDICT Some readers will find that it hits too close to reality, but there is beauty in Martin's gem of a story that confirms that friendship is a powerful force.—Jane Blue, Northumberland P.L., Heathsville, VA