License to Kill • Lethal Remedy

Lethal Remedy by Richard L. Mabry
Series: Prescription for Trouble #4
Previous Books: Code Blue, Medical Error + Diagnosis Death
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Publication Date: October 1, 2011
Source/Format: Reader's Roulette, on Reader Unboxed || Paperback

Dr. Sara Miles’s teenage patient is on the brink of death from an overwhelming, highly resistant infection with Staph luciferus, known to doctors as “the killer.” Only an experimental antibiotic, developed and administered by Sara’s ex-husband, Dr. Jack Ingersoll, can save the girl's life.

Seeking to put his life back together after the death of his wife, Dr. John Ramsey joins the medical center faculty staff. But his decision to do so could prove to be costly and even fatal.

Potentially lethal late effects from the experimental drug send Sara and her colleague, Dr. Rip Pearson, on a hunt for hidden critical data that will let them reverse the changes before it’s too late. What is the missing puzzle piece? And who is hiding it?

Note: This review was originally published on Reader Unboxed.

If I walked into a bookstore, I would never have gravitated towards the section where you'd find this book. And that would have been unfortunate because I really and truly enjoyed reading this Lethal Remedy. 

Medicine, for the most part, has never been something I've found an interest in (unlike most of my best friends, who are nurses or doctors in the making). It says something about Lethal Remedy that I was interested in the story line, despite the fact it revolved around just that very topic. 

There are various medical terms and jargon sprinkled throughout the book, but I never for a moment felt lost because they were always defined or explained in layman's terms that I could understand. I believe that this is because the author, Richard Mabry, is actually a medical practitioner himself and thus had a very knowledgeable grasp of the subject matter and how to impart it to people outside of the field of medicine. 

The suspense - from figuring out what the "lethal remedy" was doing to its test subjects to the succeeding corporate intrigue that followed - definitely had me hooked. There are times when I enjoy a good mystery/suspense story and this one was quite well written. I couldn't figure out for sure who the culprit was or what the solution would end up being, but the author manages to bring us to a tidy conclusion in the end. 

I feel quite affectionate towards the characters, especially Sara Miles, Rip Pearson and John Ramsey. These three embody the qualities and attitudes that I believe real doctors ought to have - a sincere compassion and concern for their patients, logical and clear thinking and a strong sense of what's right and what's wrong being some of the more stellar examples we see in the story.

Despite the fact that there were some outrageously out of the blue occurrences in the book (though I guess they tied in well enough with the whole threat aspect of the novel), I thought that Lethal Remedy was quite enjoyable for my first foray into this particular sort of book. Richard Mabry does a wonderful job bringing to life his characters and a story that will intrigue and command the reader's attention -- and he's convinced me to start trying more novels of this kind, starting with the rest of his Prescription for Trouble series.