An entertainingly detailed dive into the darker aspects of the modern medical world.
Lee offers a medical thriller about remedies that may cause more harm than good.
This third book in the Dr. Lin Medical Thriller series follows Toxic Minds (2025) with another adventure in modern medicine. Dr. Mark Lin is a hospital-based internist in California. During the course of his “stressful, high-paying job,” he sees people in all sorts of dire circumstances. At the beginning of the story, a young man named Hector Lucero is undergoing hemodialysis. Even though Hector is only in his 20s, he suffers from bilaterial kidney failure. After Dr. Lin talks with Hector, he suspects that a weight-loss supplement called Motileaf that Hector ingested might have something to do with it—Motileaf is the same product that Hector’s parents used to take before they both died while still in their 40s. Another of Dr. Lin’s patients is Robbie Dickerson; he weighs 500 pounds and has recently developed unexplained breathing problems. He also happens to be taking a new weight-loss drug called Naxipil, which Dr. Lin thinks may be causing some adverse effects. At a local conference put on by the makers of Naxipil, he’s hounded by sales reps. As the narrative unfolds, Dr. Lin sees more patients who may be suffering from complications from either Motileaf or Naxipil. One is a supposedly natural substance typically bought by people who put their faith in herbal remedies; the other is a hot new prescription that could wind up being as dangerous as the 1990s fen-phen scare. It will take a levelheaded, intrepid physician to get to the bottom of it all. Like any good physician, Dr. Lin is meticulous and patient in his work. He doesn’t jump to conclusions about what Motileaf and Naxipil might be doing to his patients—he needs to get all his facts straight first. After all, as he points out, “correlation does not imply causation.” He states early on, “I need more info on Naxipil, not to start prescribing it, but to see if no doctor ever should.” And so, he builds his case carefully.
Lee dispenses a lot of medical information along the way, such as in the description of a patient who suffers from “peripheral arterial disease, hepatic artery stenosis, and then fatal intestinal infarction.” It all adds up to a realistic if sometimes sluggish thriller. Dr. Lin has a lot to uncover, but he’s not exactly racing against the clock as he does things like chat with his neighbors (who happen to be retired health care workers) or attend a hockey game with a drug rep. (The latter activity includes the drug rep saying of the Anaheim Ducks, “I went to the game where they won the championship and hoisted that big trophy”; this is bland stuff.) Still, the main plot following the two possibly dangerous medications makes for an enticing read as Dr. Lin, up against both the cutthroat pharmaceutical industry and the unregulated herbal supplement market, fights to uncover the truth and stay alive in the process.
An entertainingly detailed dive into the darker aspects of the modern medical world.Pub Date: March 8, 2026
ISBN: 9798244284508
Page Count: 343
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
