Category Archives: Medical Thriller

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Pandemic

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This very complex and circuitous story. It took me eighteen (18) days to read this book and that is about twelve (12) days too long for any book. The problem was not so much with the story as a whole, but that there just seemed to be almost too much going on. There were wars, conspiracies, secret societies, romance, intrigue, and a host of other things. The characters were all good and I was happy to get to know them. I became very invested in the bulk of the characters, and there were quite a few of them. It was kind of hard keeping track sometimes though because there are so many twists in relation to the characters and the situations which change on a dime.

A mysterious outbreak starts to spread across Kenya and the CDC and WHO respond but are unprepared for what they find. A submarine with no identification markings is found sunken one hundred miles north of Alaska with evidence of scientific experiments having been performed there. Dr. Peyton Shaw is deployed to Kenya from the CDC to help trace the pathogen, as she does she starts to believe the outbreak may be a part of a larger plan. Desmond Hughes wakes up in a Berlin Hotel with a dead man and no memory of who he is, but a clue leads him to Peyton Shaw who knows him but will not tell him how. All this and more.

While I liked the book there were a few things that made me a little crazy. While I appreciate the fact that the book was well researched I don’t think every bit of that research needed to go into this one book, particularly since it is the beginning of a series. The thing was 137 chapters long, I hate having to go through that many when some are only a paragraph long. Though it may only be me, I do not think Disco music was around in 1965, even in Hong Kong. The thing that I did like a lot was that things tied up well for all the roundabout that went on.

I would recommend this but warn you to be prepared for a lot of information. If you like medical thrillers this may work for you.

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

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The Cadaver of Gideon Cathcart

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The Cadaver of Gideon Cathcart

by Edison McDaniels

I don’t want to rate this because I did not finish it. While I found the premise interesting I could not find my way into the story long enough or far enough to really lose myself in it. The characters were alright but seemed bland and since the hospital was supposed to be a character I expected a lot more from it. To be perfectly honest it bored me. I started and stopped the book for almost a month before I just gave up. I may give it a go some other time.

My rating: 0 of 5 stars

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The K2 Virus

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The K2 Virus

by Scott Rhine

I have never read anything from this author before and so did not know what to expect. It has been a while since I read a political or medical thriller and this could pull me back into reading more of both if they are this good. I enjoyed the fact that there was a slow build on how things progressed as opposed to a break neck speed in getting to the heart of things. This did not catch me with the first page but by chapter two I was all in. The characters were very well laid out and seem genuine for the most part though some were just sketched since they did not appear very often. The story was believable as far as the science behind the evolution of the virus and its spread, which made it perfect.

Daniel Mann is a 27 year old man who has deferred his life in order to care for his mother after an accident left her a partial invalid. He is working a job he hates and is overqualified for just for the benefits. Daniel brought down a company and wants to make it up to the other employees by getting them jobs but he ends up in a bad situation because he cannot seem to read women.

In North Korea a virus has been unleashed in the population by men trying to make money inside a repressive country. Jero is a smuggler who gets tainted beef which he takes to his brother-in-law to butcher for sale. He along with several others are infected by the mucus and blood of the cows. Because of the close confines they live in the virus finds a lot of hosts in a short period of time as they go about their normal business.

There is political posturing, medical issues, military intrigue, not to mention lots of spies from all sides. South Korea is caught unaware because they just want things to calm down on both sides. This definitely makes you think.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars