Up in Smoke

September 23, 2013
In the third book of this series created by retired infectious disease specialist Pennie, epidemic investigator Dr. Zol Szabo is faced with an outbreak of fatal liver failure in two groups who seemingly have little in common: the students of a religious private school and a group of firefighters. What they have in common is a fondness for Rollies, cheap cigarettes sold by wealthy aboriginal scofflaw Dennis Badger, a man whose political connections render him immune to any conventional pressures Szabo might bring to bear and whose criminal connections make him a dangerous man to cross. With little hope of ending the flood of illegal cigarettes, Szabo and his team must hope to find the hidden cofactor that turned cancer sticks into sudden death. Plausible as a medical mystery, the work is somewhat more problematic in its attitude toward First Nations people, mostly depicted here as victims, terrorists, and career criminals whose outrages various levels of government willfully decline to prosecute in the name of political correctness, and Asians, who provide both toxic products and the faceless foot soldiers of shadowy foreign gangs allied to the natives.