I have not had a chance to finish this quite yet — too many urgent things on my plate — but the opening was gripping and the concept timely. I recommend giving it a shot, definitely!

The Public Good was engrossing and hard to put down.

The storyline was easy to read and the well-crafted characters were a delight. In this story we find journalist Alondra Alvarez looking into a possible conspiracy. There is a new drug in town and this contraception seems to be making women sterile. As Alondra digs deeper she finds that this goes all the way to Congress. She has put herself in danger and the hitman's possible next victim.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion. It's suspenseful and a must read!

The worst part about this book was is eminent plausibility. The second worst was its execution. It had an interesting and frankly terrifyingly realistic story that I absolutely could see happening, unfortunately the author just doesn't appear to have the skills to pull it off in a way that I found interesting.

I was given a free a copy of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Dr. Catherine Choi is very concerned that many young women are being diagnosed with premature ovarian failure leaving them sterile. Checking the statistics in the files of the University of North Carolina medical system where she works, she is shocked to find a huge number of women have received the same diagnosis in the last three months. In addition, all of the patients were either black or Latina.

Alondra Alverez is a reporter trying to interview Senator Howell, a critic of socialized medicine, who now wants to draft a bill that would make certain medications free to those in the U.S. who need them. Another man, Senator Klein, wants contraception included. Refusing to give Alondra more information, Howell waves her away. That’s when she sees Derrick Battle, a man she knew from her college years when they had been an item.

Alondra gets a frantic message from her college friend, Catherine, saying she needs to talk with her. But before they can meet up, Catherine is murdered. At the same time, Alondra learns that one of the proposed free drugs is Ovucontra, a contraceptive injection that is given once per year and it’s an expensive drug. Why would an expensive drug be on the list of proposed free drugs?

Alondra gets an interview with someone at the drug maker of Ovucontra who seems surprised at what Alondra has found. When the head of the company comes in on the interview, he stops it immediately which only makes her become even more suspicious. Is the drug manufacturer hiding something, and if so, what?

When I started reading this book, I found the plot to be certainly different and interesting. However, the more I got into the story, I realized that the author seems to have an axe to grind against white people making it appear that they are “out to get them.” This type of racism nonsense is insulting. I will give her an “E” for effort, but I hope that future books she writes are a bit more sensitive.

Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

When Alondra learns her best friend, killed some days ago during a mugging, was suspecting a new contraceptive is making some women sterile, she’s expecting to write a paper about lack of research on side effects. She’s quickly going to find it’s much more than that because the effect is completely deliberated and only target nonwhite women.

I really liked the heroine, I found her consistent and not too go-getter for a journalist – we often see journalist characters that put themselves futilely in danger by wanting to do everything alone. The only thing that got on my nerves was her certainty a politician can’t be with a journalist – rotten excuse she didn’t give the hero when she broke up with him several years before. The love story isn’t central in the book, but it’s a valuable bonus and it adds an unforeseen development near the end. Of course they never cease to love each other and their feelings are there as soon as the y meet again, the heroine just needs some time – and fright – to understand her reasoning isn’t worth it.

I found the investigation very interesting, and we don’t need a lot of imagination to believe white supremacists could use this kind of sneaky attack. I liked seeing the heroine figure out the intention behind her discoveries, helped by the hero and a scientist who’s working for the company manufacturing the contraceptive involved. My only regret is that, as if to counterbalance the fact the bad guys are white people, the heroine and all those helping her aren’t: she’s Latina, her police girlfriend and the hero are Afro-Americans, the scientist and the friend killed at the beginning are Asians. It was almost caricatured but that didn’t disturb my pleasure with the novel.

The supremacists’ intentions are clear from the start, their racist feelings well highlighted by scenes told from their points of view, and as with all conservatism they send shiver down one’s spine as they’re so certain of being in the right. However I almost laughed with the hitman’s repeated failures concerning the heroine, he didn’t seem so talented in fact – lucky for her!

All in all a good romantic suspense I recommend.

About 10 yrs ago: An unlikely trio form a lifelong bond while students at George Washington University in DC. Catherine: the white gentile southern lass. Alondra: a brassy Latina from Brooklyn. Derrick: African-American special forces veteran. The Three Musketeers they call themselves.

Catherine's passion is medicine and headed off to UNC School of Medicine. Alondra wants to be a journalist, if she can keep her opinions in check and just report the news. Derrick goes to law school with ambitions of public service. Alondra and Derrick had become quite an item, but she broke it off because she knew that her penchant for muckraking and her reactionary temper wouldn't be the proper companion for a man who just might end up in Congress.

Life goes as expected except for Alondra. Gets her newspaper job. Her looks and heritage get her noticed by network TV. She gets a gig as the morning anchor on a DC-based network with no interest in her opinions and forces her to just be a newsreader. When reading a story that the network has blatantly slanted away from the truth, she erupts on air. Bye bye TV job. She now works for an upcoming online news group, still in DC.

Today: Alondra is trying to get some confirmations of details of a new health care bill that will provide free meds for a variety of chronic conditions. She tries to get something, anything, from Senator Howell of Alabama who sits on the committee writing the bill. His pompous, arrogant attitude toward Alondra doesn't sit well, but it comes with the territory of Capitol Hill. After being brushed off, Alondra turns and runs into the newly elected congressman from NY.

Derrick Battle. Her ex.


Catherine is doing an OB/GYN residency in Chapel Hill where the residents have to do some work in a rural free clinic. She comes across an unusually large number of women with premature ovarian failure. Women in the 20's effectively becoming postmenopausal; sterile. She asks some of her former classmates in other residencies to send her details of their cases, accumulating a substantial case series. She notices two commonalities. First, all the women had taken a new contraceptive, Ovucontra from Rock Pharmaceuticals. Single shot. Once a year. 100% effective. Second, those afflicted were all women of color. She looks into the drug and the company and starts asking more questions. Questions that reach Rock Pharmaceuticals. She's spooked by what she has learned, contacts Alondra and they agree to meet over the upcoming weekend. Friday afternoon, Catherine's mother calls. Catherine was killed on Thursday night in a bungled robbery.

After Catherine's funeral, Alondra receives a thumb drive in the mail. From Catherine. Contains all her notes about what she'd found. Names of people involved in the drug's development, doctors overseeing the clinical trials. And her own developing case series of patients. Alondra wants to follow-up and not let Catherine's fears die with her. Alondra calls Rock's Director of R/D. Dead 2 months ago. Traffic accident. She calls the doctor who ran the Miami clinical trial. Drowned a few weeks ago. She sets up a Skype call with the Kenyan doctor who ran the African clinical trial site. He's also spooked. Too many women with premature ovarian failure. He won't use it. Starts to send her his notes when he's killed right in front of her eyes.

From here, it's a race to a truth that Alondra will not let go. She needs an insider. She needs internal Rock communications. She needs to get a sample of the drug. Rock Pharma stands to make billions because it's the only name-brand drug included in the new healthcare bill. But it goes farther and deeper than just money. She needs to connect the dots before she, too, ends up dead.

Got this via Netgalley. The short description sounded interesting. A dogged journalist, a medical mystery, a political thriller. Checks most of my boxes. After reading, I looked up Crista McHugh, a NYT bestselling author. Her genres are romance (contemporary, historical, paranormal), young adult, and fantasy. Not the kind of author generally reviewed the MRB boys.

But let me tell you, boys and girls. This book crackled with a level of authenticity that is usually associated with insider knowledge. You know, a book that might've been written by a former Big Pharma employee, an MD, or a former congressional staffer. Those sorts. You'd never know McHugh is a romance novelist. I was welded to my seat reading this. And when my Kindle wasn't in my hands, I was looking for reasons to stop what I was doing in order to get back to it. I was left stunned. Obviously, McHugh knows how to write. But a medical/political/journalist thriller? Who knew. Could've easily read this in one sitting.

Pick this one up. Anyone who likes thrillers based on investigative reporting, medicine, or politics will find this one right up their alley.

ECD

p.s. Only one thing that didn't fully ring true to me. From what I've seen, Big Pharma is, for the most part, out of the R/D business. They let independent startups do the basic research on new molecules - the expensive part of the process. When they find a new molecule or product that looks promising, they just buy out the company. Cheaper in the long run. But that's an incredibly minor quibble that doesn't detract from this terrific story.

My first novel by this author and I must say I was totally engrossed in it by the end of the first chapter. Well-written with complex characters, a plot line that kept me turning the pages deep into the night, and just a hint of romance. Hope there are more stories coming. I received an e-book from NetGalley in return for an unbiased review.