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A young very sick boy arrives at LA International Airport from Guatemala City and is immediately taken to University Children's Hospital where, for no obvious reason, he dies. At the airport, a hired killer who was supposed to make certain the child never got to the hospital receives new orders from his boss as he exacts his own revenge on a pickpocket who chose him as his latest victim. In the hospital, doctor Luke McKenna relies on his former instincts as a trained military killer to bring down a famous steroid-taking football player who has been using his wife and child as a punching bag. While this is happening, another doctor, Kate, Luke's ex-lover and a former associate of Luke's father, tries desperately to contact him. She has some important information that has to do with the Guatemalan boy. But before Luke can speak to her, Kate is found murdered, shot to death. The police know of the connection between the two and are interested in Luke as the killer. Soon, Luke is framed with the death of the football player too, and he is on the run from the authorities. And in South America, where large drug manufacturers use human beings as research subjects, a multi-million dollar drug has mutated and is killing people. The men behind the drug worry more about their profits than they do the horror that they have unleashed. All they want to do is keep their association with the oncoming disaster a secret, so that they can continue pulling in their money. Now it's up to Luke to use all the clues that comes his way to make some sense of the deaths that are occurring. Even as he goes deep into the jungle to see what is happening for himself, his life is in jeopardy, not only from the men who want to keep their secrets, but also from the illness itself. Depressing and filled with blood and gore from page one, STIGMA deals with the medical field and the double-edged sword that plagues the so-called miracle cures of modern science. There's lots of suspense with some medical information added, having to do with how vaccines, genetics and mutations work, and there's plenty of information that will frighten the average reader. This book uses the classic idea of a lone man with deep training in both good (as a children's physician) and evil (a history as a military black ops soldier) who must save a world that's filled with almost overwhelming evil. Not for anyone who is already depressed, this is a dark and brooding book, filled with blood, gore and dead bodies. STIGMA takes the readers on a hell of a ride through the dangers of the medical world and the ways of greedy men. The ending also seems to indicate that another book will follow this one. I doubt I will be reading it.
Reviewed by A. L. Katz, March 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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