A fast-paced but well-grounded adventure.
Kelso’s (Fractured, 2019) medical thriller sequel tells the story of two doctors whose discovery of a cancer cure might get them killed.
Synthetic-biology expert Claire Hodgson travels to Panama to meet with her old friend Meera Jindal about a long-lasting antibiotic that Meera discovered while doing research in the Panamanian rainforest. According to Claire’s trials, the drug, Endovancin, may be a cure for cancer. As another scientist describes it: “It’s not hyperbole to say it could wind up in the pantheon of drugs alongside penicillin, insulin, cortisone, and aspirin….Millions of patients would benefit from it annually.” Soon after Claire’s arrival, however, a group of armed men, who want the drug for themselves, kidnap both doctors. Claire and her research partner, orthopedic trauma surgeon Mark Thurman, had been planning to do experimental surgery to heal the leg of a prize racehorse named Hyperion, but their treatment will be useless without Endovancin. Meanwhile, an unscrupulous pharmaceutical company—which happens to be run by the owner of Hyperion’s chief rival, a horse named Rampage—also sets its sights on Endovancin, going so far as to bribe one of Claire and Mark’s lab technicians. Now Mark must call on John Bristow, an old Special Forces friend, to help him rescue Claire, secure the Endovancin formula, and prevent the death of a world-class racehorse. Over the course of this novel, Kelso’s prose is detailed yet taut as he roots the plot believably in medical research: “It’s all pharmaceuticals, Doctor. Just how do you think you’re getting paid? The signing bonus you deposited didn’t appear out of thin air….Whether you like it or not, your hands are dirty like the rest of us.” By the time readers finish the novel, the overall story appears fairly outlandish from a distance. However, the reading experience is immersive and feels far from melodramatic; instead, the reader gets the sense that all the espionage, gun battles, and hostage situations are mere annoyances keeping the dedicated scientists from the most important thing: their work.
A fast-paced but well-grounded adventure.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9994561-4-9
Page Count: 408
Publisher: Jolly Robin Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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