LETHAL PARADISE

Thorton’s sequel to The Peril Protocol (2015) brings Dr. Hope Allerd to a Caribbean island where women and children are in grave danger.

As the story opens, a video message from journalist Clive Andrew urges his old flame Hope to come quickly to the (fictional) isle of Mousseux, because he’s “found something. Something horrible….Hope, people will die. Thousands.” She’s an expert in infectious diseases and soon discovers that the vacation destination’s iron-fisted President Andres Dubois has made a deal with a pharmaceutical company to manufacture a vaccine for “Caribbean Fever” that could be lethal to highly vulnerable people. It’s soon discovered that there’s a conspiracy at work that involves powerful Americans as well. The ensuing story, told in short chapters, involves multiple kidnappings, ruthless Serbian mercenaries, an army of child soldiers, and much more. Near-death cliffhangers happen with such frequency that it occasionally strains credulity, but it doesn’t stop Hope from grappling with her romantic relationship and Clive’s seeming lack of commitment; at one point, for instance, she’s angry that he “didn’t run after her, spin her around and sweep her into his arms declaring how he could never live another minute without her.” Sometimes, the physician author’s detailed medical knowledge slightly slows the action, as when the heroic doctor is on a grisly battlefield on which a boy is “snatched from sure death by the miracle of a needle stab between his second and third ribs to relieve a pneumothorax.” Nonetheless, this is a novel that will make for a fine beach read.

A twisty, escapist thriller set on a seemingly heavenly but deadly isle.