An intricately plotted and fast-paced thriller from a medical expert who knows the territory.
A deadly virus plagues the planet, and the only effective vaccine may never see the light of day in this dystopian medical thriller from Riaz.
In a nod to Nazi physician Josef Mengele, the infamous Angel of Death, the “menglavirus” makes Covid seem like the common cold, and it threatens to wipe out the entire world with its fatal strains. A small pharmaceutical lab called Riogenrix has released to the public an effective vaccine thanks to the genius of Dr. Harrison Boyd; meanwhile, big pharma’s efforts at inventing a vaccine have failed completely. Yet suddenly the FDA mysteriously decides to block the continuing trial process of Riogenrix’s vaccine. Coincidentally, powerful Sen. Scott Spaulding has inserted himself into the process: He has his eye on the White House, naturally. He wants to use the vaccine to further his political ambitions. And then there’s Gregory Miller, failed doctor and pharmaceutical spy who may or may not be working for Spaulding. Miller is brilliant but bitter to the point of insanity. Riaz is a doctor and knows all the expected medical lingo. He’s particularly good at creating rich characters with complex backstories and intriguing private lives: He doesn’t skimp on their human dimensions, which is the mark of a savvy novelist. His hero, Harrison, is a decent man but conflicted because he was forced to emotionally neglect his family while creating the vaccine. Miller’s personal story is that he has nurtured a grudge for over 20 years—and this eats at him every waking hour. All these characters come across as easy to identify with, and the refreshingly original ending is far from the tidy closure that mystery readers have come to expect.
An intricately plotted and fast-paced thriller from a medical expert who knows the territory.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2021
ISBN: 9780990706335
Page Count: 291
Publisher: Hill Taper Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Another disappointment from this bestselling author.
What happened to Billy Barringer?
Thirty years after the disappearance of his best friend, Ethan Marsh is back in his childhood home on Hemlock Circle. His mom and dad have just moved to Florida, and they asked Ethan to look after the place until they can sell it, but all three of them know that he needs a place to stay while he tries to get his life back on track. Given that the trauma associated with Billy’s vanishing has turned into a lasting obsession for Ethan—one that disrupts his sleep and casts a pall on his marriage—it seems unlikely that the community he went to boarding school to escape will be much of a refuge, but…sure? As it happens, the babysitter he crushed on as a kid has also come home to take care of her father. Another childhood friend is raising his own family in the house where he grew up. And a one-time bully is now a detective. All of these people were involved in the events leading up to Billy’s disappearance, and they’re all together again when new information about the case surfaces. Sager is a gimmicky author; this isn’t a slam. Horror is a gimmicky genre and, although Sager doesn’t write horror, exactly, his use of horror tropes is a distinctive element of his novels. And fans may well be ready to accept this band of sleuths or ghost hunters or potential suspects working together to solve a 30-year-old mystery. They may, however, be less forgiving of the red herrings and a complicated resolution that raises more questions than it answers. The real sin here, though, is that this book is intensely boring. Ethan Marsh might be a sympathetic character, but he’s not an interesting character, and the narrative pace is punishingly slow.
Another disappointment from this bestselling author.Pub Date: June 18, 2024
ISBN: 9780593472378
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Loyal King stans may disagree, but this is a snooze.
A much-beloved author gives a favorite recurring character her own novel.
Holly Gibney made her first appearance in print with a small role in Mr. Mercedes (2014). She played a larger role in The Outsider (2018). And she was the central character in If It Bleeds, a novella in the 2020 collection of the same name. King has said that the character “stole his heart.” Readers adore her, too. One way to look at this book is as several hundred pages of fan service. King offers a lot of callbacks to these earlier works that are undoubtedly a treat for his most loyal devotees. That these easter eggs are meaningless and even befuddling to new readers might make sense in terms of costs and benefits. King isn’t exactly an author desperate to grow his audience; pleasing the people who keep him at the top of the bestseller lists is probably a smart strategy, and this writer achieved the kind of status that whatever he writes is going to be published. Having said all that, it’s possible that even his hardcore fans might find this story a bit slow. There are also issues in terms of style. Much of the language King uses and the cultural references he drops feel a bit creaky. The word slacks occurs with distracting frequency. King uses the phrase keeping it on the down-low in a way that suggests he probably doesn’t understand how this phrase is currently used—and has been used for quite a while. But the biggest problem is that this narrative is framed as a mystery without delivering the pleasures of a mystery. The reader knows who the bad guys are from the start. This can be an effective storytelling device, but in this case, waiting for the private investigator heroine to get to where the reader is at the beginning of the story feels interminable.
Loyal King stans may disagree, but this is a snooze.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781668016138
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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