The Tennis Partner: A Doctor's Story of Friendship and Loss

Abraham Verghese, a doctor and professor at Texas Tech University in El Paso, needs no watch when he checks a patient's pulse: ''This is my equivalent of perfect pitch.'' He also displays perfect pitch in this emotionally charged tale of a young medical student's drug addiction, his second book to limn the world of American medicine (after the acclaimed My Own Country). The Tennis Partner: A Doctor's Story of Friendship and Loss is, however, less a memoir than a psychological mystery. As Verghese uncovers the bitter tragedy that befalls his charismatic tennis partner and cherished friend, even readers who are usually bored to distraction by tennis will be enthralled by his sleuthing into the human heart. A