The Enlightenment Project

American neurosurgeon Noah Archer, the narrator of this superb supernatural medical thriller from Hightower (Even in Darkness), hopes his research project to create the experience of enlightenment by stimulating the brain’s electrical impulses will lead to wide-ranging health benefits for people across the world suffering from addiction, as well as chronic depression and other mental illnesses. Then Fr. Perry Cavanaugh, an old friend who saved Archer’s sanity when the future doctor was possessed by a demon as a child, shocks Archer with the news that Henry Mandeville, a subject of the project who’s been cured of a fatal brain tumor, attributes this miracle to the devil. Cavanaugh fears that something about Archer’s methods for modifying brain functions has had the unintended consequence of making those the surgeon treats susceptible to the same demonic possession that almost drove Archer to suicide. Archer must team up with the priest to understand exactly what happened to Mandeville and prevent the darkness he experienced as a child from infecting his own family. Sensitive characterizations match the imaginative plot. Readers will compulsively turn the pages to see how it all ends. Agent: Matt Bialer, Sanford J. Greenburger Assoc. (Mar.)