"...[he] would be called, with the gallows humor of the beleaguered who fear that death is but a sneeze distant, the Rat King."

A timely global thriller that hits all the right notes in the current atmosphere -- basically it's a suspenseful story about a plague bacteria carried by rats. So, if you are triggered by reading about rats, you definitely are going to want to avoid this. There's a lot of detail.

But, back to the story. A young man, Austin Harper, works at a large university hospital in New York in the fundraising and development wing. His girlfriend, ER physician, Alexis Remnick, accompanies him on a trip to Vietnam, ostensibly on a bike tour but Austin claims he also wants to find the sites there where his uncle died and his father was wounded when they were posted there during the Vietnam War. When Austin doesn't return to the Villa Haldina Hotel in Hoi An after a solo bike ride one afternoon, Alexis contacts the local police and the Consulate. When the FBI legal attaché stationed at the US embassy gets involved the search for the missing Austin Harper shifts into high gear. As things evolve, Alexis discovers that she did not know Austin well at all and it turns out that he was involved with something completely unexpected and terribly wrong. NO SPOILERS.

Just read this. I really enjoyed it, not only because of the medical and science facts which I love, but the story is fast-paced and so realistic. The anticipation of what was going to happen kept me flipping the pages and I only wish I could have had a couple of hours to read it all in one sitting as I was always thinking about what was going to happen next whenever I had to put it down. Chris Bohjalian is an excellent writer (I've read every one of his books) and he always manages to surprise me by tackling so many different topics and does an incredible amount of research. I learned a lot about rats and disease; I'll be thinking about all the possibilities and suffer some anxiety for awhile. I thought he did a good job of giving us characters that were interesting and relatable. I was going to wait to read this closer to publication date, but the lure was too strong and I succumbed.

Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for this e-book ARC to read, review and recommend.

The Red Lotus not only kept my interest but creeped me out a little!

Alexis is an introverted emergency room doctor who lives a quiet life. One night Austin comes in with a bullet wound in his arm, and her life becomes more exciting. Austin is an avid biker, and after six months of their blooming relationship, he plans a trip to Vietnam where he will bike and Alexis will enjoy the country. Austin plans to bike to a site in Vietnam where his father was wounded and his uncle was killed during the war. Because this is personal to Austin, and he is an experienced rider, the tour guides allow him to go alone on this quest.

Austin never returns, his body is found the next day, and Alexis finds out he hasn't been completely honest with her. In fact, he has told her some pretty big lies. Alexis gets caught up in the investigation, even after returning home, and can't let it go, even though the authorities think Austin's death was an accident. She decides to hire a private investigator to see what he can find out.

What the detective and Alexis herself find out will put them in grave danger. Well, actually, it will put the entire world in grave danger. The creepy part of the book has to do with antibiotic-resistant diseases that rats carry. Not only in Vietnam, but in New York. I don't want to say too much more about that.

The Red Lotus is a twisted tale that is well-paced and the tension builds nicely. The danger is real, and the part about these awful diseases seems entirely plausible and scary. The ending may be a bit unbelievably happy, but that was okay with me.

I would recommend The Red Lotus to readers who enjoy twisted, suspenseful mysteries. I've read several of Bohjalian's books, and The Red Lotus may be my favorite yet.

I’ve never read the author before. Had I done so, I might have had different expectations from this book. It was described as twisting and a thriller. It wasn’t described as slow.

Dear Lord, this was slow.

Thriller kicks in about halfway through the book, and even then it’s rarely thrilling. There were few moments when I cared about the main character. I did love the detective who pops into the book later. He was the only one I was concerned about.

The basic plot is interesting enough that I kept reading, but not so engaging that I didn’t willingly stop reading time and again.

I think perhaps the author’s style simply isn’t for me.

• Received via Net Galley

As a long-time Bohjalian fan and the wife of a Vietnam veteran, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this book upon learning that it is partially set in Vietnam. And the book does give a flavor for what the country is like 45-50 years later, as well as the consequences of Agent Orange and napalm.

A young ER doctor, Alexis, and her boyfriend, Austin, take a cycling vacation in Vietnam. Austin goes out on his own one day, ostensibly to visit the location where his uncle was killed and his father wounded during the war. When he fails to return, the subsequent investigation reveals that Austin was not truthful about his reasons for being in country. Unable to accept the police’s explanation, Alexis endeavors to find answers.

I appreciate Chris Bohjalian’s willingness to experiment in his novels. (“The Double Bind” was particularly clever and one of my favorites.) “The Red Lotus” reads like a Robin Cook medical thriller and today’s headlines: a highly contagious disease; medical research falling into the wrong hands; bioterrorism. The unexpected timeliness of the plot (I was reading during the outbreak of coronavirus) only increases the suspense. Nevertheless, this book is not up to Bohjalian’s usual standard. Some sections were underdeveloped, and there were a few characters where it was unclear how they fit into the story. Still and all, it was an engrossing read. Trigger warning: rats and their habits. For anyone interested in reading a novel set during the Vietnam war, I recommend “Matterhorn” by Karl Marlantes.

While I found the premise of this original & intriguing I just somehow couldn't into or like it overall. Maybe it was because for most of the novel, I found it to be slow moving(it could easily lose about 50 pages) and the fact I really did not like Alexis at all. But perhaps that is a bit unfair of me considering I was looking for another Cassie to love and root for (the heroine of The Flight Attendant). I will say the 1/3 of the books shines and does have a good ending.

Chris Bohjalian has this incredible gift. This wonderful way of writing that draws you in and engages your mind and keeps you reading for more. He's also a very gifted storyteller. That's evident even in this story which...I didn't love.

The problem is that I'm not a patient reader, and this story requires a fair amount of patience. At 10% I found myself skimming impatiently to move the story along. There's a lot of information here and it's hard to say how much of it was necessary and how much of it just bogged down the pacing, but because I am an established impatient reader, it was too much for me. The pacing didn't work. Even as I found myself drawn in by certain passages and sections, I found myself frustrated in other places. Skimming is always my barometer on whether or not I should finish a book and so, for me, at this time - it was a DNF.

That said, the topic is timely in a "ripped from the headlines" sort of way, and for those who have more patience to spare, I think this is likely a fascinating, compelling read. It's one I may circle back to if I find myself in a different frame of mind at some point.

It took me a bit to get into The Red Lotus. Although Chris Bohjalian has a talent for writing domestic relationships, I was waiting to get into the cat and mouse chase that so often comes when someone steals a virus and others are trying to get it back.
Once I hit that point, about 20% in, it was a thrill ride… although I do have a bit of an issue with how easily Alexis was able to get information out of the various police services. I’ve never been in trouble with the law, but I can’t see the FBI just giving a civilian names of suspects or other people Alexis can go to for more information. Once Alexis hired Ken Sarafin, a private detective, it became a bit more realistic for me, since he would have contacts in law enforcement.

The descriptions that Bohjalian gave of Vietnam made the country sound gorgeous and a place I would like to visit. And his information in regards to the Vietnam War made a part of history come alive. That is one part of the book I really enjoyed.

Bohjalian does a fantastic job making all the loose ends come together at the end, and this would make a great beach read, or if you want to increase your fear in regards to the Covid-19 virus, give The Red Lotus a read.

The first time Alexis saw Austin, it was a Saturday night. Not in a bar, but in the emergency room where Alexis sutured a bullet wound in Austin’s arm. Six months later, on the brink of falling in love, they travel to Vietnam on a bike tour so that Austin can show her his passion for cycling and he can pay his respects to the place where his father and uncle fought in the war. But as Alexis sips white wine and waits at the hotel for him to return from his solo ride, two men emerge from the tall grass and Austin vanishes into thin air. The only clue he leaves behind is a bright yellow energy gel dropped on the road. As Alexis grapples with this bewildering loss, and deals with the FBI, Austin’s prickly family, and her colleagues at the hospital, Alexis uncovers a series of strange lies that force her to wonder: Where did Austin go? Why did he really bring her to Vietnam? And how much danger has he left her in? Set amidst the adrenaline-fueled world of the emergency room, The Red Lotus is a global thriller about those who dedicate their lives to saving people, and those who peddle death to the highest bidder.

I was immediately pulled into the mysterious elements of The Red Lotus, through details that were revealed in bits and pieces in the beginning, and then more slowly over time as the story unfolded. Alexis was the most interesting character to me, with her intense and diligent work as an ER doctor. But hovering overhead were the issues that further defined her character: emotional losses in childhood; a tendency to deal with anxiety through cutting; and blinders that prevented her from seeing the more obvious flaws in her friends and lovers.

I also enjoyed her persistence in finding answers to the big questions about her boyfriend’s character flaws, along with the nefarious reasons for the trips to Vietnam.

Rats are a big theme in the story, both in terms of the rodents that played a primary role in what eventually played out, but the metaphorical use of the term in labeling some of the darker characters. The story that kept me turning the pages was fascinating and a little creepy at times. I was rooting for Alexis and hoping she would guard herself against those who were out to do her harm. 4.5 stars.

***My e-ARC came from the publisher via NetGalley.

Alexis is an NYC ER doctor who is on duty when Austin arrives with a gunshot wound in his arm. It isn’t love at first sight but they both become intrigued with each other. Soon they are a couple, going on a bike trip to Vietnam. When Austin fails to return from a solo outing, Alexis becomes concerned, worried then frantic. When the authorities come back with clues regarding his disappearance, Alexis expects the worse.

At this point, Bohjalian jumps into a plot of mystery, foul play, misleading identities, and villainous agendas. Nothing is what it seems but everything appears threatening. As the tension rises, readers will reflect on the current situation regarding Covid-19. What could have easily been a thrilling beach read is now a cautionary tale for our times. Michael Crichton fans will be pleased. Recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

What started off as a fun cycling vacation in Vietnam with her boyfriend Austin turned into a nightmare for Alexis, an emergency room doctor in Manhattan. Austin never returned at the end of a day when he said he was biking alone to pay tribute to his father and uncle's service during the Vietnam War. Alexis's relationship to the man she thought she loved unraveled with his disappearance, and the mysteries surrounding his professional and personal life followed her home to New York. Because of her determination to uncover his secrets she found herself in extreme danger and left this reader hurrying with her to discover the true Austin.

So, this novel will either turn you off within the first 25% or it will grab you and take you on a roller coaster ride of fast moving and growing viruses and how easy it would be to quickly affect the entire world population.  It's about drug resistant pathogens, rats (lab and dumpster types), the researchers trying to stay ahead of the next pandemic, and good vs. evil. In these days of a coronavirus pandemic it was very easy to imagine all of Chris Bohjalian's novel as nonfiction. This is a scary and anxiety producing story. Be warned.

The Red Lotus

A dramatically chilling, tension-filled page-turner.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

SUMMARY
Alex, an ER doctor meets Austin for the first time on a Saturday night when he is brought into the emergency room with a bullet in his arm. Six months later they travel to Vietnam together, on a bike tour so the Austin can pay his respects to the place where his father and uncle fought in the Vietnam war. At least that’s what Austin told Alex.

As Alex waits for Austin at the hotel in Vietnam, she becomes increasingly alarmed when his does not return from his day of cycling at the expected time. He is not answering his phone and a search of his route yields little. He has vanished into thin air and the only evidence were two yellow packets of energy gel, found on the road that might have belonged to Austin. Alex calls the U. S. Embassy in Vietnam and soon discovers several lies that force her to question exactly what Alex was doing on that bike ride.

REVIEW
Once again, CHRIS BOHJALIAN has knocked the ball out of the park. THE RED LOTUS is a dramatically chilling page-turner. It’s well-written and smartly structured with shifting points of view, that will keep you guessing till the very end. Who is responsible for Austin’s disappearance? Why?

The story is tension-filled, poignant and timely and I couldn’t read it fast enough. I was so enthralled that I read this 400 page thriller all in one day.

Bohjalian has a delightful knack for writing strong but vulnerable women characters, Alex’s character is no different. She’s smart, suspicious and persistent in her search to find out what happened to Austin. But she is also grieving and struggling, and all of this together makes her come alive on the pages.

One of my favorite things about THE RED LOTUS is on several occasions in the story Bohjalian made me want to “learn more” about a word, phase or topic, so I found myself googling references. I absolutely love it when a book goes beyond being highly entertaining but is also (unintentionally, perhaps) educational as well.

Author CHRIS BOHJALIAN is the best-selling author of 21 books including most recently The Sleepwalker (2017) and The Flight Attendant (2018), which is being turned into a limited HBO television series staring Kaley Cuoco.

Thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday Books for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Publisher Doubleday Books
Published March 17, 2020
Review www.bluestockingreviews.com

The Red Lotus (2020)
By Chris Bohjalian
Doubleday, 400 pages
★★★ ½

He could not have timed it this way, but Chris Bojhalian’s new novel, The Red Lotus, will certainly resonate with current fears (obsession?) with the Covid-19 virus. The Red Lotus is a thriller in the spirit of The Andromeda Strain, The Year of the Flood, The Last One, or a Ken Follett novel.

It begins innocently enough. Alexis Remnick, a former cutter, has slowly rebuilt her life as a stoic doctor who gets her adrenaline rush by working in the emergency room of a large New York hospital instead of the razor’s edge. It’s just what she needs, a sprawling and anonymous place that’s so large she’s never even been to the fifth floor, where all things administrative occur. Ironically, her recently steady boyfriend, Austin Harper, is both a former patient she once treated for a gunshot wound sustained at a bar and an administrator on that very floor she’s never visited.

Workplace romances are generally a lousy idea, but this one is working so well that Alexis jumps at the chance to accompany Austin on a group cycling tour of Vietnam. He has done it before and assures her it’s fabulous, hence Alexis’ biggest worry is that he is a serious competitive biker and she’s the do-a-loop-around-the-park gal. Vietnam is all that Austin promised until–in thrillers there’s always an “until”–one cyclist hurts his knee, the guide decides everyone needs a rest day, and he cancels a leg of journey. Everyone except Austin is content to luxuriate by the hotel pool. He actually wanted to do that day’s grueling uphill ride to challenge himself and to pay homage to the spot where his father was wounded and his uncle was killed during the Vietnam War. Because he has done the tour before, the guide agrees to let Austin get his adrenaline rush and pedal on his own.

The next time Alexis sees Austin, it’s on a slab at the morgue–the victim of a hit-and-run accident. Being a dispassionate scientist, Alexis both identifies and briefly examines Austin’s body. There’s something vaguely unsettling about it, but she can’t quite determine why. In the meantime, Captain Nguyen and a detective named Quang, are investigating the unrelated death of a cab driver and Pham, a female lab technician. In thrillers, of course, this is more than random background detail.

I give away nothing when I tell you that Austin was not entirely whom he seemed to be. That’s clear early on. At each step of her way through shock, grief, and being sucked into the mystery, Alexis finds inconsistency and fabrication in everything about Austin. The Red Lotus evolves from romance and tragedy into a who-do-you-trust tale that involves rats, darts, a potential global pandemic, and a surprise interlocutor. As in such novels, Alexis is a latter-day Pandora who keeps opening doors she shouldn’t. Give Bojhalian credit, though; Alexis’ actions are consistent with a person used to trusting her reason and now trying to sort out what is logical and what is grief. After all, Alexis knows way more about patching up gunshot victims than in dealing with her own emotions.

She’s so torn that she hires an ex-cop detective, Ken Serafin, who is a friend of the father of Sally Gleason, one of Austin’s supervisors. In thrillers, no one ever hires a detective and fades into the woodwork. Alexis conducts a parallel investigation by talking with more of Austin’s coworkers–even his replacement and the hospital’s administrative head. Nothing adds up. Did Austin know Pham? Who is Douglas Webber, a name that keeps popping up? What can she tell Austin’s parents and how much can she raise questions about him? It’s enough to make a bad night in the ER seem relaxing. And so it might, were it not that some kind of pandemic might be at the root of a lot of things. Or not.

Chris Bojhalian isn’t a high-toned novelist, but few rival him for embedding suspense within domestic relations. He’s also very good at puzzles, as in punching out small pieces that seem insignificant until you realize each is necessary for the picture to cohere. This makes Bojhalian eminently more readable than paint-by-the-numbers thriller writers even though, truth be told, he uses most of the same devices and resolutions.

The Red Lotus releases on St. Patrick’s Day, though were it not for the Covid-19 virus, that release date would otherwise seem premature. It is the sort of novel that has “beach read” written all over it. Here’s hoping, though, that by summer we will have a handle on the virus and you can shade yourself under a seaside umbrella and enjoy The Red Lotus as speculative, not a crystal ball.

Rob Weir

If I had to judge this novel on a 1-10 scale, I'd have to give it a 12! Chris Bohjalian has penned a terrifying tale of what could happen when a deadly disease is weaponized for the wrong reasons. It's described as a twisting story of love and deceit, but it's more about greed and power. Who wants what, and for what reason. Alexis, an ER doctor, learns the hard way when her boyfriend Austin goes missing during a bicycling tour of Vietnam. It's clear that it's not a hit-and-run as first suspected, but rather just one of the many chess-like moves to dominate in a powerful biological match. No one seems to question Austin's lies to Alexis or the tangles that spread like a finer-than-silk cobweb. The novel is tense, terrifying and tragic - no one really wins in this masterfully crafted story.

This is scary, edge-of-your-seat fiction that's a little too close to reality given that it is being released right now as we are experiencing a pandemic. ER doctor Alexis' boyfriend dies in a supposed hit-and-run accident while they are bicycle touring Vietnam. But from the very start, the circumstances surrounding his death are questionable and mysterious, and Alexis' instincts, honed during hours in the ER, tell her that all is not right, that Austin has lied to her about his reasons for travel, has lied to her about past injuries, has hidden his interest in rats and the labs at their university hospital. The plotting, which begins right when Austin disappears, is particularly effective in creating suspense, and the italicized portions told by an unknown narrator ratchets it up. The setting of Vietnam is particularly intriguing, and the characters are well drawn. This starts at a slow boil and doesn't let up.
Thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday for an advance copy.

An intense book. This is my first time reading this author. I was expecting something different but this surprised me in a good way.

Could this book be any more timely as the news is filled with the spread of the Coronavirus? Emergency room doctor Alexis and her boyfriend Austin are on a biking vacation in Vietnam when Austin suddenly disappears while riding on his own and he is later found dead, perhaps in an accident. The story veers back to NYC and more questions than answers come up over what really happened, and what Austin was really doing in Vietnam. Great storytelling!

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy in return for an honest review. Chris Bohjalian is one author I always read. His books are all different and he weaves a stunning tale with each one.

This was my first Bohjalian and it really wasn't what I was expecting! The synopsis set me up for a twisty, fast-paced mystery when this one felt more like a slow-burn investigation.

It took me at least 100, if not 200, pages to get into this book. One of my issues with it were continuity errors, which may (or may not) be fixed prior to publication. They just kept taking me out of the story, while I went, "Wait, what?" to myself. Big props to a friend for not only a) reminding me I needed to read this one already but also b) serving as much-needed support as I read!

My favorite part of the Red Lotus isn't really a plot point or characterization, but how incredibly relevant it felt. At the same time, I do think it could have been more - faster paced, more exciting, more mind-blowing, more intriguing, more suspenseful, more surprising, take your pick - just...more. The pieces were there, but more could have been done with them, if that makes sense (which also leads me to believe this could be a really good movie).

Alexis is an ER Doctor. She's seen plenty of strange things and people. One Saturday night she meets a man named Austin who has a bullet in his shoulder. Details are sketchy and the man waiting for him is a bit off too. Turns out some crazy guy walked into a bar and just started shooting.

About six months later they are in love, not living together but already traveling to Vietnam on a bicycle tour with his friends. Alexis is not there for cycling. She is there to support her boyfriend on this particular tour where his uncle died and his father was wounded. 

Then Austin doesn't come home. The only sign of him an energy gel pack on the road. When his body turns up, Alexis wants answers. What has Austin done? Besides lie and lie really well? For one he has left her in danger and not only her. The world.

Okay, so that's the story. Scary premise but plausible. I just could not get into this one. I skimmed more that I read.

NetGalley/Doubleday Books March 17, 2020

This was a great Chris Bohjalian book. I enjoyed the disturbing medical mystery that had you holding your breath and yelling “no” into the book. In the beginning I was a in a bit of disbelief at how hard Alexis was looking for answers for somebody that she dated for a short period of time but Bohjalian developed her character throughout the book that you saw it as part of her personality not necessarily out of the love for Austin. The story still gives me goosebumps and puts a sinking feeling in my stomach to think of this scenario playing out in the real world and possibly how close we have come to making this a reality. Thank you NetGalley for an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.