Title: Poison Pill
Author: Anthony Lee
Publisher: Anthony Lee
ISBN: 9798348494827
Pages: 344
Genre: Thriller
Reviewer: Arthur Thares
Hollywood Book Reviews
Poison Pill is a little like taking every prime-time network drama and mashing it into one book. There is a lot of medical drama, some detective work and mysteries to solve. Fans of this genre are going to love Poison Pill because it rolls all of this up into an easy-to-digest story that doesn’t leave much to the imagination. This linear tale doesn’t rely on many twists and turns but instead leans into story-driven plot devices that easily walk the story from one chapter to the next. It isn’t until the third act that things start to seem a little out of the ordinary.
Dr. Mark Lin’s day starts like any other, doing rounds at his hospital, but when a patient presents strange symptoms, his interest is piqued. Soon another comes, and another, and Dr. Lin starts to think one is an anomaly, two is a coincidence, but three is a pattern. It isn’t until his own father falls ill that he realizes something must be done immediately. Instead of getting the cops involved, Dr. Lin decides to do some detective work himself, not realizing the danger he’s putting himself and others in. It isn’t until he has the whole thing solved that he realizes how much trouble he is really in. In a life and death situation, Dr. Mark Lin must forget his oath to do no harm in order to save himself, and possibly hundreds more.
The story starts a little slowly and feels more like a medical procedural than a mystery in the first couple of chapters. Once Dr. Lin starts putting the clues together, it picks up a little, and the story starts to form around him. What starts as a benign story about a medical mystery quickly becomes something else entirely, with gore and espionage. Each chapter picks up the pace until you find yourself in a full-on gunfight during the climax of the third act. As long as you are willing to read through the first part that focuses more on pharmaceuticals and vitamins than it does on the actual story, you’ll be rewarded in the second half.
Poison Pill is a fun book because it isn’t a cookie-cutter story that you feel like you’ve read a hundred times before. You don’t have to be a fan of medical dramas to enjoy this book, but it definitely helps, especially in the first half when there is so much more emphasis on the pharmaceutical side of the story. Most readers will leave this book feeling satisfied, and maybe even a little emotional. Poison Pill is a gripping medical thriller that pulls back the curtain on the dark side of modern medicine, where profits outweigh lives and silence is enforced at any cost. Trust no data. Question every motive. Because in this game, survival depends on knowing what’s really in the pill.