Book Review-Vector Red: Epidemic of Genetically Altered Bacteria (Brier Hospital Book 12)-Lawrence W Gold, MD

I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for another of Lawrence W Gold's Briar Hospital Books to come out. I am admittedly a lover of medical mysteries/thrillers and his are some of the best I've read. This one gives amazing insights into the personality of a mild mannered psychotic neurotic-mild mannered until things don't go his way.

Jacob Weizman, MD and his wife Lola, both survivors of the Holocaust, are again in this book built around the frightening concept of Biological Warfare. Even though the US is supposedly working on ways to counteract this horror---are they really? What might happen if in a US lab a Genetically Altered Bacteria is created by an eminent scientist (with major personality problems) discovers one and lets it loose over a part of the US? And what if he accidentally inserted the wrong strain?

Jacob almost loses hope while trying to save the lives of two sisters--both affected differently. It will take a combination of brand new and old time medicine--and Lola egging him on!

Do they catch the perpetrator? What happens to him? You will have to read the book to find out.

About the Book: (from Amazon)

The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention ended research on the offensive use of biological weapons, or has it? Features of the Patriot Act giving the US immunity from violating its own bioweapons laws has increased suspicion of US bioweapons activities.

While the world has a high degree of certainty that countries like Iraq, North Korea, Libya, Sudan, and Syria have continued offensive bioweapons research, the United States has limited itself to such research of a “defensive” nature only.

Teens and young adults returning from missionary work in Arizona come home with severe, and sometimes fatal bacterial infections. Is this an epidemic? Are these individuals contagious? The infections are unusual as common environmental bacteria, usually benign, have suddenly become aggressive and life-threatening.

Is this government policy gone awry, or is there a more nefarious explanation?

Read a chapter or two here

Purchase the book here

About the Author: (from author's website)

I was born in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, moved to Queens, and then, as New Yorkers say, my family ascended to the Island. After graduating from Valley Stream Central High School, I went to Adelphi, a college then, a university now, and then to medical school in Chicago. The war in Vietnam interrupted my postgraduate medical training with a year in Colorado Springs and another as a Battalion Surgeon in Vietnam. I spent seven months in the Central Highlands with the 4th Infantry and five months in an evacuation hospital in Long Binh outside Saigon where I ran the emergency room. I returned intact in 1968 to complete my training in internal medicine and diseases of the kidney, nephrology. I worked for twenty-three years in Berkeley, California in a hospital-based practice caring for patients with complicated illnesses often in ICU, and served as Chief of Internal Medicine and Family Practice. For many years, I was an active member of the quality assurance committee. Circumstances permitted my wife, Dorlis, and me to retire in October 1995. Before fate could intervene, we tossed off the dock lines, and sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge for a life at sea in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Four years later, exhausted from repairing everything on board, (often many times) we sold the sailboat and within a year took the lazy man’s out; we bought a Nordic Tug trawler. We motored around Florida, the Bahamas, and the entire East Coast and completed two ‘circle trips’ to Canada and back, eight months, the first time, five months, the second. I’ve written eight novels, five in he Brier Hospital Series, and one non-fiction book, I Love My Doctor, But…, a lighthearted look at the patient/doctor relationship. I recently published my ninth novel, A Simple Cure, about the search for the cure of the most deadly skin cancer, malignant melanoma. I write primarily to entertain, but I can’t help but pass on to readers observations and beliefs culled from years of practice, and yes, my biases, too. I strive for realism in portraying the medical scene which is gripping enough without melodrama or gimmicks. With even a minor degree of success in writing novels, comes responsibility to readers. I attempt to produce honest material that reflects my beliefs. Exposing these beliefs to the public through my writing requires courage, stupidity, or both. My fans have been generous, and although nobody enjoys criticism, I’ve learned much from that, too. The novel that expresses most clearly my candor, and my bias, is For the Love of God. The novel reflects my attitudes toward those who are willing to sacrifice the lives of their children for their personal religious beliefs.

We live in beautiful Grass Valley with 11 year old Bennie, a Yorkie who just looks like he’s on steroids and 2 year old Wesley, a long-legged terrier mix with the personality of a cat.

Author's Website
Dr. Gold's Fiction and Medical News (this is very interesting)
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