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
A kind of Holden Caulfield who speaks bravely and winningly from inside the sorrows of autism: wonderful, simple, easy,...
Britisher Haddon debuts in the adult novel with the bittersweet tale of a 15-year-old autistic who’s also a math genius.
Christopher Boone has had some bad knocks: his mother has died (well, she went to the hospital and never came back), and soon after he found a neighbor’s dog on the front lawn, slain by a garden fork stuck through it. A teacher said that he should write something that he “would like to read himself”—and so he embarks on this book, a murder mystery that will reveal who killed Mrs. Shears’s dog. First off, though, is a night in jail for hitting the policeman who questions him about the dog (the cop made the mistake of grabbing the boy by the arm when he can’t stand to be touched—any more than he can stand the colors yellow or brown, or not knowing what’s going to happen next). Christopher’s father bails him out but forbids his doing any more “detecting” about the dog-murder. When Christopher disobeys (and writes about it in his book), a fight ensues and his father confiscates the book. In time, detective-Christopher finds it, along with certain other clues that reveal a very great deal indeed about his mother’s “death,” his father’s own part in it—and the murder of the dog. Calming himself by doing roots, cubes, prime numbers, and math problems in his head, Christopher runs away, braves a train-ride to London, and finds—his mother. How can this be? Read and see. Neither parent, if truth be told, is the least bit prepossessing or more than a cutout. Christopher, though, with pet rat Toby in his pocket and advanced “maths” in his head, is another matter indeed, and readers will cheer when, way precociously, he takes his A-level maths and does brilliantly.
A kind of Holden Caulfield who speaks bravely and winningly from inside the sorrows of autism: wonderful, simple, easy, moving, and likely to be a smash.Pub Date: June 17, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50945-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2003
Despite getting a little preachy toward the end, Leary has largely achieved a genuinely funny novel about alcoholism.
A supposedly recovering alcoholic real estate agent tells her not-exactly-trustworthy version of life in her small New England town in this tragicomic novel by Leary (Outtakes from a Marriage, 2008, etc.).
Sixty-year-old Hildy Good, a divorced realtor who has lived all her life in Wendover on the Massachusetts North Shore, proudly points to having an ancestor burned at the stake at the Salem witch trials. In fact, her party trick is to do psychic readings using subtle suggestions and observational skills honed by selling homes. At first, the novel seems to center on Hildy’s insights about her Wendover neighbors, particularly her recent client Rebecca McAllister, a high-strung young woman who has moved into a local mansion with her businessman husband and two adopted sons. Hildy witnesses Rebecca having trouble fitting in with other mothers, visiting the local psychiatrist Peter Newbold, who rents an office above Hildy’s, and winning a local horse show on her expensive new mount. Hildy is acerbically funny and insightful about her neighbors; many, like her, are from old families whose wealth has evaporated. She becomes Rebecca’s confidante about the affair Rebecca is having with Peter, whom Hildy helped baby-sit when he was a lonely child. She helps another family who needs to sell their house to afford schooling for their special needs child. She begins an affair with local handyman Frankie Getchell, with whom she had a torrid romance as a teenager. But Hildy, who has recently spent a stint in rehab and joined AA after an intervention by her grown daughters, is not quite the jolly eccentric she appears. There are those glasses of wine she drinks alone at night, those morning headaches and memory lapses that are increasing in frequency. As both Rebecca’s and Hildy’s lives spin out of control, the tone darkens until it approaches tragedy. Throughout, Hildy is original, irresistibly likable and thoroughly untrustworthy.
Despite getting a little preachy toward the end, Leary has largely achieved a genuinely funny novel about alcoholism.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-250-01554-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2012
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 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.
