A bold medical thriller that takes on the scourge of misinformation.
A no-nonsense doctor aims to bring down a deadly cult in Lee’s crime novel, the second in a series.
The most dangerous sickness does not infect the body, but the soul; Orange County hospitalist Dr. Mark Lin knows this better than most. One of his recently released patients, a pregnant woman named Shannon Dixon, was just killed in a suicide bombing at an OB-GYN clinic. While the public suspects anti-abortion activists are to blame for the attack, Lin—who was on the phone with his patient when the bomb went off—is struck by something he heard the bomber shout right before detonation: “Purity is mine!” When a new patient uses similar language to describe a strange healing group she’s recently joined (one that believes in mysterious powders and injections), Lin knows he needs to investigate. Path to Purity, as the secretive group is known, follows the teachings of a health guru called the Sun Priest, and not just anyone is allowed to join. Hoping to discover if the group was behind the bombing, Lin decides to infiltrate by posing as a sincere recruit, even if this requires him to pretend that he finds the Sun Priest’s pseudo-scientific treatments credible. As Lin proceeds down the Path, it soon becomes apparent that the group, which rails against doctors, vaccines, and “a medical-industrial complex,” is a cult working to isolate and brainwash its members. But what reason would Path to Purity have for murdering Shannon Dixon? As Lin digs deeper, he sees more people associated with the cult turn up dead from strange conditions or untreated illnesses. When the bloodshed escalates, Lin will have to decide if he’s bound by his oath to do no harm…or if the only way to deal with a death cult is to deal some death himself.
Lee’s prose, as narrated by Lin, is muscular and direct, whether the protagonist is explaining how to save a patient from a pulmonary embolism or swearing vengeance. “I now have one case of death by disinformation,” Lin fumes when a patient dies. “Not misinformation, incorrect info spreading with no intention to harm. Disinformation, with liars knowing they’re lying. Something tells me the Path to Purity knows their rituals don’t help. They must be stopped.” Lin, whose style of investigation is more James Bond than Sherlock Holmes, does not have much in the way of a bedside manner; indeed, some readers may find him an unpleasantly angry presence to accompany for nearly 400 pages. It’s clear that Lee knows his medicine, however, and the verisimilitude he brings to his depiction of the health and treatment of the characters (both at Lin’s hospital and in the teachings of the Path) do much to sell the reader on the reality of the doctor’s action-movie turn. The novel nods at the contemporary crisis of medical misinformation hocked by influencers, podcasters, and even politicians, and it is cathartic to see Lin take up the fight against the Sun Priest’s bunk science. Fans of the previous volume will undoubtedly enjoy this new adventure.
A bold medical thriller that takes on the scourge of misinformation.Pub Date: April 20, 2025
ISBN: 9798348330576
Page Count: 390
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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