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Deadly Recall The author of this slick and fast paced medical thriller, Arvin Chawla, takes us to a journey through the medical world. Born in 1962, he trained in internal medicine at Prince George Hospital in Maryland and is currently practising at Northern Virginia. What started out as a hobby is now his passion. He lives in the suburbs of Washington D.C. with his wife and two children. Chawla tells the tale of Jason Gilchrist, a doctor who has to substitute for another doctor who has gone for an extended leave. His work at Elmore Nursing Home is more related to supervising, as it is more of an old age home than a hospital. Although he starts off thinking it to be just an hour worth of duty every evening, it soon sucks him into a deadly arrangement involving the residents of the nursing home being used as guinea pigs. The deeper he digs, the worse it gets. Although he could distance himself from these activities, his conscience does not allow him to turn a blind eye towards the hapless souls. His love interest, Pam, is a nurse there and helps him in his sleuthing. Jonathan Devereaux, as the shrewd industrialist and Blackwell as the corrupt US Senator are the apex of where power can lead you. Both of them are amazingly good at machiavellian deals without a concern about anything other than money. Devereaux’s son-in-law, Micheal McFadden, is a step ahead when it comes to deviousness. While Devereaux gets flawed jets to fly, McFadden puts the lives of old folks at Elmore Nursing Home at stake. Mrs Garrett as the loud wife of the first victim to fall prey to the greed of a few is quite a visualisation complete with her green nails. A battle of good pitted against the most devilish kind of evil follows. In a world that is surrounded by blatant terrorism from all sides, a desensitisation of sorts has set in for such sly kind of insidious terrorists. Fighting the invisible enemy that is among us is a tougher call than those who claim responsibility after each attack. The story is well told but is quite predictable and contrived at times. Even then it is gripping enough to be read till the very end in one go. The author keeps the narrative simple and the language mostly free from medical jargon. He goes the extra mile in creating complete looks for his characters that puts life into the story.
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ANY science relies heavily on research and experimentation for its growth. So it is with the medical field. While newer diseases crop up by the minute, cures remain elusive. Research into these takes up a lot of time, money and manpower. When a seemingly great treatment is on the threshold of making it to the mainstream, it has to pass the all-important test of healing without causing damage in any way. The people behind these could be doomed if one of these miracle cures were to fail. If by some chance, or by scheming deliberation, a drug is launched without proper verification, it could cause havoc beyond our wildest dreams.