Patient DL lies motionless in a small room at the end of a hospital corridor. She has suffered massive damage to her brain, and it's not clear whether she can see or hear the world around her.

When Sarah Newman, the narrator of this ghostly tale, is charged with finding a spark of light in her lifeless body, she is drawn into a drama that extends far beyond the hospital walls. What accidental befell DL to cause her such massive brain damage? Why does her family behave in such unsettling and perplexing ways? why is DL's husband visiting the patient after hours, in the dead of night? And what is troubling the narrator herself, who seems to carry a burden from her past?

As the tension build and the strange case of Patient DL becomes known to the outside world, Sarah Newman finds herself at the heart of a personal and ethical dilemma. The Quick is the thrilling account of an obsession, charged throughout with a sense of mystery of consciousness. It heralds the arrival of a major new talent.