In Boston, a disgraced medical student is sent to deliver a research paper that could save her career... In a hospital four thousand miles away, a reclusive scientist, dying from an incurable disease that threatens to make each tortured breath his last, is on the verge of perfecting a serum that could save millions of lives-and bring others inestimable wealth... In Chicago, a disillusioned detective is hired to determine the identity of a John Doe, killed on a Florida highway, with mysterious marks on his body. Three seemingly disconnected lives, surging unrelentingly toward one another-and linked forever by THE FIFTH VIAL