A bold medical thriller that takes on the scourge of misinformation.
A no-nonsense doctor aims to bring down a deadly cult in Lee’s crime novel, the second in a series.
The most dangerous sickness does not infect the body, but the soul; Orange County hospitalist Dr. Mark Lin knows this better than most. One of his recently released patients, a pregnant woman named Shannon Dixon, was just killed in a suicide bombing at an OB-GYN clinic. While the public suspects anti-abortion activists are to blame for the attack, Lin—who was on the phone with his patient when the bomb went off—is struck by something he heard the bomber shout right before detonation: “Purity is mine!” When a new patient uses similar language to describe a strange healing group she’s recently joined (one that believes in mysterious powders and injections), Lin knows he needs to investigate. Path to Purity, as the secretive group is known, follows the teachings of a health guru called the Sun Priest, and not just anyone is allowed to join. Hoping to discover if the group was behind the bombing, Lin decides to infiltrate by posing as a sincere recruit, even if this requires him to pretend that he finds the Sun Priest’s pseudo-scientific treatments credible. As Lin proceeds down the Path, it soon becomes apparent that the group, which rails against doctors, vaccines, and “a medical-industrial complex,” is a cult working to isolate and brainwash its members. But what reason would Path to Purity have for murdering Shannon Dixon? As Lin digs deeper, he sees more people associated with the cult turn up dead from strange conditions or untreated illnesses. When the bloodshed escalates, Lin will have to decide if he’s bound by his oath to do no harm…or if the only way to deal with a death cult is to deal some death himself.
Lee’s prose, as narrated by Lin, is muscular and direct, whether the protagonist is explaining how to save a patient from a pulmonary embolism or swearing vengeance. “I now have one case of death by disinformation,” Lin fumes when a patient dies. “Not misinformation, incorrect info spreading with no intention to harm. Disinformation, with liars knowing they’re lying. Something tells me the Path to Purity knows their rituals don’t help. They must be stopped.” Lin, whose style of investigation is more James Bond than Sherlock Holmes, does not have much in the way of a bedside manner; indeed, some readers may find him an unpleasantly angry presence to accompany for nearly 400 pages. It’s clear that Lee knows his medicine, however, and the verisimilitude he brings to his depiction of the health and treatment of the characters (both at Lin’s hospital and in the teachings of the Path) do much to sell the reader on the reality of the doctor’s action-movie turn. The novel nods at the contemporary crisis of medical misinformation hocked by influencers, podcasters, and even politicians, and it is cathartic to see Lin take up the fight against the Sun Priest’s bunk science. Fans of the previous volume will undoubtedly enjoy this new adventure.
A bold medical thriller that takes on the scourge of misinformation.Pub Date: April 20, 2025
ISBN: 9798348330576
Page Count: 390
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2025
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
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