The Sixth Commandment by Lawrence Sanders (1978)

The Sixth Commandment
by Lawrence Sanders
Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons
Copyright: 1978
Book Club Edition

Up the Hudson, the leaves are gone from the trees, the rains and freezing mist of late November chill the blood, and the people of Coburn are burrowing in for another winter. Or what is left of them. For Coburn is as moribund a burg as they come. The young have either left or are trying to; the old are getting older; and Coburn's sole claim to fame and prosperity is Gordon Telford Thorndecker, Nobel Prize-winning doctor and head of a combined research lab and rest home for the rich and aged.

Dr. Thorndecker has applied for a million-dollar grant. His scientific credentials are impeccable; his project -- to investigate the "cellular clock" that controls the normal life span of human beings -- is fully worthy of support; and the whole town of Coburn (despite the rumors, the gossiping tongues) is rooting for him.

Enter Samuel Todd, field investigator for a New York foundation, whose job is to "assess the intangibles, things known only to the applicant's priest, psychiatrist and/or mistress." A suspicious romantic of a man, Todd is too young to have seen it all, but too old to expect the best of this world. But is it only Todd's suspiciousness, the way the citizens of Coburn stare past his shoulder while praising Thorndecker to the skies? Or when he learns of Thorndecker's seductive young wife, Julie, and her not-so-secret activities? Or when he discovers that a patient at the rest home has been buried suddenly in the dead of night, deceased, according to the death certificate, of simple heart failure?

Wouldn't you be as suspicious as Todd, who, upon arriving at his hotel that first stormy night, finds a typed two-line message waiting for him at the desk, saying: "Thorndecker Kills."

Out of these beginnings, Lawrence Sanders has created his most compelling novel, the story of men and women banding together to hide a terrible truth and of a once-great doctor, Thorndecker, driven by love and a maddening quest for immortality, to perform the mot reckless experiment. Gripping in theme and story The Sixth Commandment also contains the most varied, vivid and well-drawn cast of characters of any novel Sanders has written, and, in Samuel Todd, his most irresistible hero.

Condition: Used. Hardcover. Dust cover shows a bit of edge wear, cover scuffing and light discoloration. Dust cover flaps are lightly discolored. Pages may be tanning from age. Previous owner's "Library Of" stamp is on the front endpaper.

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