_A MAN OBSESSED_ By ALAN E. NOURSE ACE BOOKS, INC. 23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y. A MAN OBSESSED Copyright, 1955, by Ace Books, Inc. All Rights Reserved Printed in U.S.A. * * * * * HE HUNTED HORROR THROUGH A MANIAC WORLD! Jeffrey Meyer had a killing on his mind. It meant nothing to him that his towering Twenty-first Century world was going mad. He shouldered aside the rising tide of narcotics-mania, the gambling fever, the insatiable lust for the irrational. Jeff had his own all-consuming obsession--Paul Conroe must die! After a five-year frenzied chase, Jeff had his victim cornered; he'd driven him into the last hideaway of the world's most desperate men--the sealed vaults of the human-vivisectionists. And Jeff knew that to reach his final horrible objective, he must offer himself also as a guinea pig for the secret experiments of the world's most feared physicians! Alan E. Nourse's new novel A MAN OBSESSED has the impact of Orwell's _1984_ and the imaginative vigor of Huxley's _Brave New World_. * * * * * About the author: Born in Des Moines, Iowa, and currently studying for his doctorate in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Alan E. Nourse has managed in between to make himself a high rating as a science-fiction author. His stories have appeared in every leading fantasy magazine and many anthologies. A MAN OBSESSED, his latest work, will be his third novel to see book publication. Concerning it, he says; "The idea was drawn from my experience in minor grade medical guinea-pigging which I as a medical student have done from time to time. The Hoffman Medical Center, originally conceived as a likely development in the future of medical treatment and research, is not modeled on any existing organization. Medical mercenary work does, however, exist at the present time for testing new drugs, studying physiological effects, and in some cases testing rather dangerous procedures. Cash is paid for participation, and certain groups of experiments have become very popular among medical students as a source of very easy, if slightly risky, income." CHAPTER ONE