Jonathan Lowe Geezer

Geezer

Jonathan Lowe

Five Star, Dec 2005, $25.95, 353 pp.

ISBN: 1594144397

Alexandria-based Tactor Pharmaceutical research engineer Alan Dyson learns that his funding for the Methuselah Gene project is suspended. His superiors explain that his efforts to extend life expectancy are going nowhere with the worms he tested dying earlier than normal and besides they object to his using a benign form of the HIV virus, unacceptable due to the connotation even if it works as the transmitter.

That night someone broke into his lab and stole his notes and erased his hard drive; his lab technician Jim Baxter, a cautious person, is dead having injected the serum into himself. When Alan gets home, his computer there his also been erased. He asks his best friend, Tactor computer programmer Daryl to look into what happened to his equipment. Daryl traces the thief to a Walter Mills in Zion, Iowa. Alan heads to the Hawkeye State only to find illegal human medical testing using his formula. If the unknown examiners learn he is in the Midwest, Alan will forfeit his life, but he cannot walk away when his objective was to prolong life not kill it.

Though the conspiracy behind the Midwest testing is a sub-genre occupational hazard, GEEZER is a terrific medical thriller that focuses on the misuse and abuse of research in spite of the ethical dedication of the lead scientist. The story line takes off once David arrives in Iowa and realizes what has happened to his experiment on improving life. His first name is apropos as he battles a Goliath corporation to stop the devastating testing. Fans will appreciate this fine look at what can go wrong when amoral individuals use human guinea pigs in the name of science that is profitable science.

Harriet Klausner