A NECESSARY RISK
KATHLEEN LONG
ISBN#9780373692439
March 2007
Harlequin Intrigue
225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9
Mass Market Paperback
$4.99
279 pages
Romantic Suspense
Rating: 4 Cups

Jessica Parker is a newly appointed lead researcher for a local pharmaceutical company, New Horizons. She is in charge of all the local clinical trials on new drugs. She is interested because even though the newest HC0815 is being tested for Hepatitis C, she has hopes other new cures or hopes might be found for other diseases.

Zach Thomas is a police detective with a vested interest in the New Horizons HC0815 clinical trials, his young brother, Jim, was in the study and has supposedly committed suicide weeks before. Not believing for a minute that his brother would have taken his own life without a reason, he is blaming the drug for causing it. Now he only has to find proof that the drug is killing people not curing them.

Zach recruits Jessica to help him prove kids on the trial drug are being killed, and not just committing suicide. Unfortunately, a former coworker of hers confesses to covering up discrepancies. While asking for help, he is killed before their eyes, hit by a moving vehicle. Zach and Jessica must now break this drug cover-up wide open and show the public that there are hidden dangers with most any new medicine, sometimes even death can result.

I was not quite sure how this story was going to play out with the prologue of Jim and his death. I was surprised how it shows us the way pharmaceutical companies might be testing new drugs. Unfortunately for many in this story it has a tragic ending, but it has opened my eyes that not everything we believe in the media anymore about drugs and how safe they might be. I wonder if this has or will happen and just why maybe this author has brought it to our attention? It now makes me even more wary of miracle drugs or cures for diseases now. Side effects can be hazardous, sure it may help a disease or symptom but what happens if it causes something else to go wrong. That is why many drugs even today are being recalled from stores and pharmacies, it makes you think twice about buyer beware now.

Lainey
Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance
Reviewer for Karen Find Out About New Books