A remarkable premise for a scientific mystery, hampered by some confusion about the characters’ allegiances.
A drug company scientist heads to Malaysia to investigate deaths in a clinical trial for a new cholesterol drug in this debut novel.
Frank Serono, a senior scientist at New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant Annexin, is excited about the prospects for the company’s new wonder drug. The innovative formula has been shown to raise HDL, or good cholesterol, levels and could prevent and reverse atherosclerosis. Unfortunately, an unusually large number of people have died during the clinical trial in Malaysia, and Frank is sent to Kuala Lumpur to talk to the doctors and seek patient records. Accompanied by Annexin’s clinical investigator, Dr. Ethan Sapirstein, Frank finds that a few boxes of patient records have disappeared from the Malaysian facility, and the staff cannot explain how or why they could’ve vanished. As two shady businessmen, also from New Jersey, meet with drug providers in Kuala Lumpur in the hopes of becoming internet pharmaceutical distributors, there is a series of shocking murders. Ethan and three others are found dead, causing Annexin’s leadership to demand more answers from the perplexed Malaysians. From his home base in New Jersey, Frank watches in distress as his hopes for the new drug slowly disintegrate while he seeks those who killed his colleagues. And he conducts even more research, looking for a new yet elusive drug. Curatolo, himself a veteran of the pharmaceutical industry, has concocted a terrific premise for a science thriller and murder mystery, full of illuminating but sometimes alarming insights into the drug development and medical fields, along with the addition of some unsavory characters in the pharmaceutical distribution world. The scientific discussions and the plotlines surrounding DNA sequencing and drug research are informed yet not overly technical. But the structure of the novel is a bit more problematic, as the story shifts gears halfway through and one of the villains becomes more of a protagonist. Though a good deal of effort is expended to make the new scenario convincing, the move casts doubt on the tale’s direction and perspective. The author explains that campanilismo is an Italian philosophy: “That everything important in life occurs within the area from which you can see the bell tower (It. campanile) of your town.” Frank’s research goes deeper and deeper yet the book’s central metaphor, taken from the title, never really resonates.
A remarkable premise for a scientific mystery, hampered by some confusion about the characters’ allegiances.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9896566-0-3
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Bayberry Institute LLC
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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