From Library Journal
Physician/novelist Wilson (Implant, LJ 7/95) spins another fast-moving thriller, this time around the issue of legalizing drugs. When President Thomas Winston announces a plan to attack the drug problem by making drugs legal, he's met first with public outrage, then with an assassination plot involving his boyhood friend and personal physician, Dr. John VanDuyne. In a plan masterminded by a Colombian drug lord, six-year-old Katie VanDuyne is kidnapped to persuade her father to give the president an antibiotic that will destroy his bone marrow. The kidnapping goes awry early on, because of the doctor's ethics and a kidnapper's attachment to Katie, but Wilson spins out the action to the last pages, making some persuasive arguments for drug legalization along the way. Readers may quibble with an occasional unlikely plot device, but they'll keep turning pages to the end. A sure bet for popular fiction collections.?Michele Leber, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Vir.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
What would actually happen if the president decriminalized drugs? The drug lords certainly would not let a tax-free, $50 billion annual income disappear without a struggle, would they? In Wilson's exciting yarn, John VanDuyne, the president's personal physician and longtime friend, is put in an excruciating position when his patient broaches drug legalization: if he wants to get his kidnapped daughter, Katie, back, VanDuyne must give the president a potentially fatal drug. With confederates in high government places and an assistant given to sending gruesome "persuaders" from kidnapped victims to keep their family members and friends on mission, drug boss Carlos Salinas foresees no problems for his scheme to stay in business. Problems do, of course, arise in the White House and elsewhere. High-tech electronics, the kidnappers' failure to discover beforehand that Katie needs daily medication for epilepsy, and VanDuyne's somewhat insane ex-wife are just some of them. The concluding, brilliantly conceived chase in the New Jersey pine barrens should leave many readers exhausted, happily.
William Beatty
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
