Doctor pens a thriller in his 'spare time'

So what is it about the water in Portland? Or the microbrews?

Being the master of one of the professions is not enough for some residents of the Rose City. No, after a long, hard day of running an ad agency or practicing the law or medicine, there somehow remains the unquenchable need to become a writer of popular fiction in what used to be called "spare time."

Pierre Ouellette was a top Portland ad agency partner when he concocted a highly praised bio-tech thriller titled "The Deus Machine." Phillip Margolin was a high-profile Portland attorney who started writing legal thrillers that became surefire best sellers. Now along comes Dr. David Farris, a Portland pediatric anesthesiologist, who has crafted a new debut thriller that has even earned a book blurb rave from none other than Scott Turow.

Farris' "Lie Still" (William Morrow, 372 pages, $24.95) is drawn from his internship as an emergency room doctor, which gives it a riveting immediacy. The Stanford-educated physician, who practices at Portland's Emanuel children's hospital, concocts a page-turning story narrated by a surgery resident in Phoenix who begins to suspect that the coma of a 13-year-old patient is the result of an act of medical revenge by an intimate from his own past.

Farris' initial inspiration for a thriller came during his anesthesiology residency when one of his professors suggested that a commonly used drug could make "the perfect murder weapon." As Farris recalls, "That got me going. It took a lot of years to reshape it beyond the trite and obvious."

Of course, the time required by the fledgling writer can probably be forgiven since Farris also happened to be working 80-hour weeks in his real profession.

David Farris discusses "Lie Still" at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at The Elliott Bay Book Co., 101 S. Main St. Information: 206-624-6600.

-- John Marshall