Book Review – Drugs to Forget: Race Against Bioterror by Martin Granger

A tale about a team of documentary film makers, bioterrorism and criminal pharmaceutical companies, which combine to produce an intriguing thriller.  This proved to be an entertaining read which provided interesting information on how independent TV film makers go about their work.

I found the description of the documentary filming process fascinating.  All the more so as it was underpinned by bioterrorism and the methods used by pharmaceutical companies.  The characters were believable as were the locations in London and Zimbabwe.

The author was well briefed on the situation his characters found themselves in and so was able to produce a believable peace of fiction.  I highly recommend it.

 

Keith Jahans

Available from Red Door Publishing
as an ebook and paperback

Bullets in Fiction

There are numerous references to bullets in literature.  Silver bullets have been used by the fictional masked western hero, The Lone Ranger, to shoot his armed adversaries without harming them, and by others to kill supernatural werewolves.  Other examples can be found in detective novels where forensic ballistic reports often lead to the undoing of many a criminal mastermind.

The German Scientist and physician, Paul Ehrlich, coined the concept of a magic bullet to describe the perfect drug that could selectively target a disease-causing organism without harming the patient.  I worked as a professional microbiologist for forty years and had experience of working with different bacteria and antibiotics so I thought it might be an idea to write a story about a scientist who discovered a fictional drug and the effect this had on his life.

Despite the endeavours of scientists such as Ehrlich, drugs are not perfect medicines.  I cannot think of one that does not have harmful side effects.  Given the fact that some have hallucinatory properties and are addictive, I decided to throw that into the mix as well.  There are a lot of references to bullets in literature so as the narrative progressed I thought it might be an idea to link the story with bullets that came from guns and are specifically designed to kill.  Whether I succeeded enough in creating an entertaining read is up to the reader to decide.

My novel Magic Bullets can be found at http://peatmore.com/magicbullets.htm

 

Keith Jahans