McDaniels is a 1990 graduate of Stanford Medical School and completed his long and grueling training in neurosurgery at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. This was in the days before resident work hour restrictions, he says, and it wasn't uncommon to work 100-120 hours or more per week. "It was intense, no doubt. As chief resident at the county hospital, I was on call every night for six months straight. Many weeks I operated four or five out of seven nights. This was after operating all day. You develop a certain mentality—a certain survivalist way of thinking—in such intense environments."

It is that sense of intensity he wanted to convey in NOT ONE AMONG THEM WHOLE, and by all accounts he has succeeded. The novel follows a group of surgeons struggling to save the wounded at a battlefield hospital during the terrible fighting and the days that followed. They have not only to contend with the scores of wounded and the battle waging around them, but with fatigue and their own inner demons as well. The writing has been described as crisp, the dialogue engaging, and the plot lines intricately woven and wonderfully timed...