The author continues his streak of engrossing medical tales with this winner.
This thriller proves that the cure can be more dangerous than the disease.
The soul of this latest medical tale by Bollinger (Satan Shoal, 2016, etc.) is Eric Carter. Eric heads the North Carolina–based lab for Tera Pharmagenics and is creating Fluzenta, the first universal flu vaccine. Eric has sacrificed much in Tera’s decadelong effort to bring Fluzenta to market. His wife, Kate, divorced him, marrying a local real estate agent. In addition, Eric doesn’t spend nearly enough time with his 8-year-old daughter, Ali. But it’s all about to pay off for Eric when the Food and Drug Administration approves Fluzenta. Only the FDA doesn’t. That’s when Eric’s orderly world collapses. The moral compass of Tera, Eric makes plans to appeal the FDA decision while trying to find an alternative use for the research that might keep the company afloat. Unfortunately, Frank Liles, Tera’s CEO, is feeling really pressured because he borrowed money from the wrong kind of investor. So, behind Eric’s back, Frank and Nicole Peters, one of the company’s senior research scientists, concoct an unscrupulous plan to create a demand for Fluzenta. The resulting epidemic gets Fluzenta quickly approved, but then deadly side effects appear. So Eric and Wally Moore, another senior scientist, race to find a cure for this new strain before more people die, including the protagonist’s beloved aunt. In this fast-paced tale, Bollinger does an admirable job highlighting how big pharma and the government often clash. Drug companies spend years and millions of dollars developing new medicine, seeking to meet stiff FDA regulations to protect the public. But in the end, it’s the sick who end up paying top dollar for those drugs that do get approved. In addition, the author skillfully focuses on Eric’s life inside and outside the office; the hero is a well-meaning man who finds himself wrestling with a life-threatening outbreak. Eric tries to maintain the semblance of a normal life, working to preserve his relationship with Ali and a bicoastal romance with Rae Thornton, another Tera executive. So it’s understandable that Nicole and Frank were able to pull off their scheme under his nose. Still, the appealing protagonist keeps struggling to find a way for his hard work and tough choices to benefit humanity.
The author continues his streak of engrossing medical tales with this winner.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9989975-0-6
Page Count: 364
Publisher: JNB Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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