Pathogen - Jessica L. Webb
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On the one hand, we have harried ER physician Kate Morrison, MD. On the other hand, we have upright RCMP sergeant Andy Wyles. They just happen to be in love. Great love life or not, Kate’s work life is miserable right now, so when Andy’s superior officer asks for her help with a case in which a medical question may be tangentially related, the good doctor jumps at the chance to spend a couple of days in a wealthy enclave in British Columbia’s primo ski country. |
People in Hidden Valley have been coming down with a killer flu. So why’s the RCMP involved? Apparently one of the wealthiest of the wealthy is running for Parliament and “a journalist” asked him a disturbing question about his constituents’ health. Thus, Andy, with Kate in tow, head for the hills.
As (bad) luck would have it, by the time the two get to Hidden Valley, even more people are sick and another one has died. To make matters worse, the Health Department has called in an expert pathologist to perform the necessary autopsies. That would be a good thing, except Andy and Mona Kellar, MD, FACP, etc. know and hate each other. Wonder why…
| To make a long (and rather boring) story short; more people get sick, more people die, more autopsies are performed, the government health people determine that this strain of flu is manmade, and Kate (with a little help from her team) discovers the truth and identifies the miscreant. Yay, Kate: we knew you’d do it (you’re the heroine, after all). That’s all well and good, but why does [spoiler alert] Kate decide to walk away from her six-foot grey-eyed gorgeous hunk of blonde lover? Only Jessica L. Webb knows, because that information’s nowhere in Pathogen. |
I’ll be honest: I’m not a fan of romantic mysteries. I’ll slog through the mushy stuff, however, if the mystery is a good one. Why I slogged through this romantic mystery, however, is considerably more mysterious than Pathogen was. Lemme ‘splain…
It’s not that the identity of the villain was obvious; in fact, it remained almost as opaque after its revelation as before. It’s partially that Webb’s awkward attempts to drop red herrings went nowhere, and much more that the entire premise is so implausible as to make the suspension of disbelief impossible. That the villain could have access to a weaponized flu virus is difficult enough to envision, but the method Webb provided for how the baddie obtained the stuff is utterly ludicrous. Then there’s also the whole question of why the Mounties would be sent to town to look into a handful of flu cases – clearly the only way Webb could conceive for getting Wyles sent to the little town.
Nope, Pathogen’s a loser all the way around: it’s clumsily plotted, the mystery is kitten-weak, and Webb spends far too much page space on Kate’s lusting after Andy’s “perfect teeth,” “gorgeous gray eyes,” and “long frame.” Give it a pass: there’s better LGBTQ fiction out there. Oh: did I forget to mention that Andy's full name is Andrea? Silly me.
Confidential to JLW: dry ice does not leave a residue. It sublimes instead of melts, changing phase directly from solid to gas.
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