Oath of Office is no exception. Dr Lou Welcome councils doctors who have run into difficulties based largely on the strains and pressures of their medical practices like alcohol abuse, mental problems and other issues that the huge pressures of their practices can cause. A doctor that Lou has worked with previously suddenly launches a shooting spree while working in his practice, killing several patients, his staff and than turning the gun on himself. Lou is blamed for releasing the doctor before he is was cured.
In looking at the facts and causes of this sudden snap, Lou is plunged into several cases of mental snaps resulting in both deaths and great injuries. He isolates the apparent cause of these aberrations to one town and begins to narrow down the source of these mental lapses. In a related situation, the president has discharged from office his Secretary of Agriculture and replaced him.
Palmer brings in the possibility that seems to be viable for modern science to enhance one product by injecting the DNA of a living creature, and the actuality of such a project making that product bigger, better and much more abundant than it would normally be. Palmer has a talent for bringing his characters to life, imparting normal human strengths and weaknesses. Oath of Office is no exception, and the protagonists are brought to life during the action grabbing the reader.
They must, using logic, solve the hypothetical kidnapping of a girl named Polly. Each week they will be given a new set of clues and if, at the end of the six-week semester, the class has not solved the case, Polly will be murdered β hypothetically, of course. The assignment begins to bleed into their daily lives, consuming the students. They begin to see clues all around them and some even begin to believe that the case may be more than just some classroom assignment.
With the clock ticking, can they really solve the case and maybe prevent a real-life murder? Simply genius. Brennan, along with Monty, is scheduled to officiate at the wedding of his niece in New York. Their father, Declan Burke, who fled Ireland 40 years earlier, understands it as a threat to his life, and sure enough, Declan is shot and wounded at the wedding.
