What do you get when you combine a world-renowned research neurologist, a young, beautiful research assistant, and three skilled golfers-one of whom is the world’s best and the other two top ranking amateurs? In Marc Zegar’s Out of Bounds you get a delightful thriller, combining cutting-edge brain science, golf at the highest level, and the choices people make in the name of love-love of science, love of others, and even love of self.
Ellen Ann Simpson is a grad student and wet-behind-the-ears research assistant from a small rural community; when the renowned neurologist Dr. Charles Kline hires her as his lab assistant, little does she know she’s about to contribute to one of the world’s great scientific breakthroughs-or how everything will change in her relationship with her boyfriend Eddie Blake, an extremely successful day trader and noted amateur golfer. She’ll have to decide what love looks like for her-and how does she want to spend the rest of her life?
When Eddie beats out his best friend and successful sports agent Mark Levin (also a former U.S. Amateur National Champion and the star of a previous Zegar novel, One Last Shot) to win a spot alongside the world’s best-the incomparable Bear Talbot-at the Fushima/ Montero Bay Pro-Am, he’s on top of the world. He has a great life. His discipline as a trader has made him extremely successful, he has a fantastic, breathtakingly beautiful girlfriend-and, he hopes, future wife-in Ellen, and he’s about to play golf with Bear Talbot, a fourteen-time major championship winner. Little does he know, his world is about to drastically change, a split-second tragedy drastically changing the course of his life to come.
Dr. Kline-or Charlie, as Ellen knows him-is a shy and awkward but no less brilliant research neurologist. Now he’s on the brink of a breakthrough that could change neurology and brain science forever; he’s about to transplant a portion of the brain-the nucleus incertus-that controls motor skills. If and when it works, the implications for all manners of science will be tremendous, including potential replacement brain matter, treatments for several brain injuries, diseases and more. He’s so close-but will he get there? And at what cost? And when that breakthrough comes, what are the ethical and moral implications? Do those lines change when people you love are involved?
Zegar’s Out of Bounds grapples with the sacrifices made for science, for love, and for passion-as well as explores the idea of what makes someone who they are-in a thrilling ride that will surely captivate you. See how friendship and love are tested by trauma and the choices each of our protagonists are willing to make in the interest of pursuing their dreams and desires and ask yourself, what choice would I make?
