Roger Mills
As a retired physician, I’ve long been fascinated by individuals who spend their lives in high-stakes professions where control is paramount. My novel explores what happens to a man like that when the structure of his life falls away. My protagonist, Dr. Luke Mallory, is a retired trauma surgeon who prided himself on fixing people who had been “broken.”
Luke finds himself adrift in retirement—lonely, haunted by past grief, and estranged from his family—and discovers he has no idea how to fix himself.
The story follows Luke as he moves into a retirement community on a misguided mission to save his ex-wife from a legal battle. He becomes entangled in a conflict far more dangerous than he imagined, one that forces him to confront a lifetime of unresolved anger and leads to a violent confrontation.
Ultimately, it’s a story about the illusion of control, the messy reality of family, and the humbling, unexpected paths to redemption that can appear late in life.
My Story
I graduated from Culver Military Academy, Amherst College, and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and trained in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. After two years active duty in the Navy, I completed my cardiology training at the Peter Bent Brigham (Harvard). I was a clinical faculty member at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in its early years, and a full-time faculty member at the University of Florida. I worked as a staff cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic and then joined J&J, first with Scios Inc., and then with Janssen Pharmaceuticals.
My books include Nesiritide, the Rise and Fall of Scios and a posthumous memoir assembled from the papers of my college friend and double sculls partner, Bernie Witholt, titled 240 Beats per Minute: Life with an Unruly Heart.
Nesiritide won a 2016 Foreword Indies bronze in science and 240 Beats is listed as an “Amazon Bestseller in Doctor-Patient Relations.”
I also contributed to and edited JFK. The Last Speech. The book is a companion volume to Bestor Cram’s prizewinning documentary film “JFK. The Last Speech,” and the book won first place for nonfiction in the 27th Annual Writer’s Digest self-published book awards (2020).
After completing the JFK book, I wanted to try my hand at fiction. In the fall of 2022, I took a one-credit online novel-writing course and was hooked. I applied for and was accepted into the Stanford OWC (Online Writing Course) program. I’ve finished the two year program and my first novel.
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Roger Mills
Roger Mills is an accomplished retired cardiologist, US Navy veteran, photographer, and writer of fiction and nonfiction.