A thrilling jump into the deep end of the (gene) pool.
Gene therapy takes a deadly turn in Rogers’ medical thriller.
In this fourth installment of the author’s Mayfield-Napolitani thriller series, Joe Mayfield and his wife Louise “Weezy” Napolitani hope to land a new client for CyberSol, their cybersecurity company: the Swiss firm APX, a supplier of materials used in gene sequencing. APX recently acquired Gerontin Therapeutics, a start-up that developed a rapid infusion method that can help fix “bad genes in otherwise healthy people.” Former Gerontin scientist Ella Sonesgard, now an APX VP, tells Joe that former employee Daniel Manly and some of Gerontin’s intellectual property have gone missing. But when Joe and Weezy travel from their Bethesda office to meet with Ella in Boston, the cybersleuths are told she is unavailable; instead, company CEO Vic Neuchtermeier, whose shoulders “spoke to hours on the weight bench,” meets with the pair to close out the project, explaining that finding the missing employee and intellectual property is not a priority. However, as they have already surmised that Daniel is in Boston (and because Weezy’s family lives there), the couple remain in Bean Town. They learn from Weezy’s brother that a neighborhood friend, a congressman fighting higher drug prices, has died suddenly of a rare disease. About the same time, a U.S. senator collapsed and died, possibly as a result of recently received prophylactic gene therapy. When Ella is diagnosed with hemophilia, it appears gene therapy has been weaponized. Readers familiar with the series will enjoy this fast-paced entry; newcomers, however, may be puzzled when pieces of backstory are blurted out and wonder if the message-receiving aural implants and other futuristic gizmos in the story were explained thoroughly in previous books—their existence is assumed here. The characters’ relationships and dialogue—particularly between Joe and Weezy—are realistic, playful, and sexy. Humor snakes throughout the narrative, and the descriptions are inventive, such as the image of Weezy’s male relatives being “built like boxes with legs.” The book is topical, with large portions addressing gene therapy and climate change and its deniers, and the ending is killer.
A thrilling jump into the deep end of the (gene) pool.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781732226241
Page Count: 378
Publisher: Gotuit Publishing LLC
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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