Beyond the arcane terminology and abundant dialogue, modest characters inhabit a rock-solid medical mystery.
Scientists and federal agencies desperately try to pinpoint the source of an unknown neurological disease in Hansen’s debut medical thriller.
College professor Dr. Mark Selby reviews a patient’s symptoms on behalf of his former student, Dr. Albert Jackson. The patient, who has a history of Parkinson’s, has a current condition indicative, Jackson believes, of mad cow disease. But when doctors rule out known illnesses for other patients with similar symptoms, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Security Agency recruit experts from the college to learn more about the disease. Is it an epidemic or terrorists’ biological attack? Hansen packs the story with an abundance of medical jargon, which may initially baffle readers. For instance, with no context given, Megan of the CDC asks “Have you considered that a protease may have hydrolyzed the native proteins?” Eventually, the medical issues become clearer as theories are eliminated, but frequent debates about the unidentified sickness cause the dialogue to direct the narrative, sometimes to a confusing effect. In one instance, Mark and Al discuss a patient in a viewing room and then, with little action provided, they’re suddenly walking outside with others who have joined the conversation. Although the nature of the viral threat isn’t exactly known, some direct, tangible threats appear: an Iraqi official who may be responsible for the virus; mysterious figures keeping their eyes on doctors; and team members being abducted or assaulted. Throughout the story, lines of dialogue are rarely given new paragraphs, so the novel is filled with lengthy paragraphs consisting of dialogue among multiple characters, making it difficult to determine which character is speaking. Engrossing background stories strengthen a few characters, particularly Mark, whose sordid past includes being suspected of murder and an affair with a student at Harvard, and pathologist Sal Bonea, whose OCD as a schoolboy led teachers to believe he had a learning disability. Elsewhere, Mark’s relationship with Megan falls a bit short; it’s hard to accept his love for her while he’s having sex with Mandy, his boss’ assistant, and is noticeably infatuated with NSA agent Susie Michaels. Hansen rounds out his novel with nosy reporter Walter Pope looking for a big story and the ever-present government agents sweeping college offices for bugs as well as hygiene.
Beyond the arcane terminology and abundant dialogue, modest characters inhabit a rock-solid medical mystery.Pub Date: April 18, 2013
ISBN: 978-1470039448
Page Count: 322
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.
When two women who share a birthday meet, a journalist becomes the subject of her own true-crime mystery.
On their 45th birthdays, Josie Fair and Alix Summer meet at a pub and discover they were born not only on the same day, but in the same hospital. Alix is a successful journalist, and Josie convinces Alix that her story is worth telling: Josie met her husband when she was 13 and he was 40. “I can see that maybe I was being used, that maybe I was even being groomed?” she confesses to Alix. “But that feeling of being powerful, right at the start, when I was still in control. I miss that sometimes. I really do. And what I’d like, more than anything, is to get it back.” From this premise Alix creates a Netflix series, Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin! which investigates Josie’s life as she reconciles what happened to her as a teen and seeks a new path. With the story unfinished, the narrative unfolds in the present tense, with prose that jingles like song lyrics: “He turns to see if the girl is behind him, and sees her wishy-washy, wavy-wavy, in double vision through the glass windows of the hotel.” Alix is both intrigued and repulsed by Josie, but she initially gives her the benefit of the doubt. After all, Alix’s husband, Nathan, has a drinking problem, and Alix knows what it’s like to be reluctant to leave a bad situation. But Josie seems more interested in being part of Alix’s seemingly glamorous life than she is in fixing her own, and when three people end up dead and Alix’s life is turned upside down, the evidence points to Josie—and turns the TV series into a murder mystery. Transcripts from Alix’s interviews alternate with the narrative, offering increasingly varied perspectives on Josie’s story as told by her neighbors, friends, and family members. With so many versions of events, the ending shatters, leaving readers to decide whose is the truth.
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781982179007
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
© 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.
