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
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.
On the isle of Capri, Helen Lingate seeks revenge on the people responsible for her mother’s death 30 years earlier—her own family.
When Sarah Lingate fell to her death on Capri in 1992, she left behind a 3-year-old daughter, Helen, and a legacy as a gifted playwright; her favorite necklace of golden snakes was lost to the sea. Thirty years later, Helen, chafing at the restrictions she’s grown up under as a member of the old-money Lingate family, hatches a plan with her uncle Marcus’ assistant, Lorna Moreno, to blackmail her uncle and her father with that same necklace, which mysteriously entered her possession a few months before. The novel begins on Capri just after Lorna disappears, and then traces her steps from 36 hours earlier. Interweaving chapters from the points of view of Helen, Lorna, and Sarah—as well as, later, a few others—we learn how Sarah gradually became stifled by the constant pressure of keeping up appearances until she became inspired to write a play, Saltwater, that was a not-so-thinly veiled tell-all revealing dark Lingate family secrets. It was shortly after this that she fell to her death. The loss of her mother has come to define Helen’s life, and if she can use the necklace as leverage to escape her family, and maybe learn the truth along the way, she’ll take the risk. Lorna’s motives are both murkier and more straightforward—she’s never had money, and she’s got a chip on her shoulder about it, so splitting 10 million euros with Helen sounds like a way to discard her past and start fresh. These strong, conniving women drive the drama and the narrative, and they are captivating enough that as twist after twist begins to unfurl, the novel still feels character-driven. The end—well, the end shocks. And it’s well earned. By the time the sun sets on the gorgeous excess and rugged coast of Capri, lives will have been destroyed.
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593875551
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
An addictive psychological thriller.
When a mysterious novel appears on her bedside table, a successful documentary filmmaker finds herself face to face with a secret that threatens to unravel life as she knows it.
Catherine Ravenscroft has built a dream life, or close to it: the devoted husband, the house in London, the award-winning career as a documentary filmmaker. And though she’s never quite bonded with her 25-year-old son the way she’d hoped, he’s doing fine—there are worse things than being an electronics salesman. But when she stumbles across a sinister novel called The Perfect Stranger—no one’s quite sure how it came into the house—Catherine sees herself in its pages, living out scenes from her past she’d hoped to forget. It’s a threat—but from whom? And why now, 20 years after the fact? Meanwhile, Stephen Brigstocke, a retired teacher, widowed and in pain, is desperate to exact revenge on Catherine and make her pay for what happened all those years ago. The story is told in alternating chapters, Catherine's in the third-person and Stephen's in the first, as the two orbit each other, predator and prey, and the novel moves between the past and the present to paint a portrait of two troubled families with trauma bubbling under the surface. As their lives become increasingly entangled, Stephen’s obsession grows, Catherine’s world crumbles, and it becomes clear that—in true thriller form—everything may not be as it seems. But how much destruction must be wrought before the truth comes out? And when it does, will there be anything left to salvage? While the long buildup to the big reveal begins to drag, Knight’s elegant plot and compelling (if not unexpected) characters keep the heart of the novel beating even when the pacing falters. Atmospheric and twisting and ripe for TV adaptation, this debut novel never strays far from convention, but that doesn’t make it any less of a page-turner.
An addictive psychological thriller.Pub Date: May 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236225-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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