“A Slow Burning” by Stanley Pottinger, Dutton, 452 pages, $24.95.

Fans of medical-thriller maven Robin Cook will want to pounce on “A Slow Burning.”

Stanley Pottinger’s intricately plotted tale is part medical thriller, part urban drama and part police procedural – three vastly different genres that the author interweaves expertly.

Dr. Cush Walker, a brilliant black neurosurgeon, has invented a new brain-scanning technique that detects whether a person has a predisposition for racial bias.

That has New York City cops in a frenzy – they’re worried that the test will be used to uncover officers’ hidden prejudices and boot them from the force.

Good-guy detective Nat Hennessy finds himself walking the plank when he’s assigned to help his superiors discredit Dr. Walker and his work.

Hennessy’s in a tough spot because his fiancee Camilla Bisonette is a former flame of Dr. Walker’s – and he’s going to have to use her to get the dirt on her ex-boyfriend.

The doctor’s miraculous discovery may have additional applications, including the power to erase biases as well as heal brain damage and even transplant personalities.

But soon, too many people know too much and heads are going to have to roll. But whose and when?

As if Pottinger doesn’t have enough on his plate, the author mixes in nearly a dozen separate plot elements, including at least one dark secret from virtually every character.

While it sounds like a tall order to keep all the stories flowing smoothly, Pottinger’s clear, crisp prose does just that, steadily building tension in every subplot.

Another Pottinger strength is the fierce determination of his characters. Each has his own agenda and will push it to the max – for better or worse. Good and evil seem to battle on every page.

That means once you’re 50 pages in, don’t expect to put this one down.

Like Cook, Pottinger is able to describe complex medical procedures in layman’s language, making the book refreshingly free of scientific technobabble.

“A Slow Burning” is a quickly burning fire of a story that you won’t be able to extinguish until the last page.