Title: Unethical: A Psychological Thriller
Author: Marla L Anderson
Pages: 300
Publisher: Wolfheart Press
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
I have always been intrigued by stories about aging and Alzheimer's Disease. That is why, I looked forward to reading what this story had to offer.
In the Prologue,
we meet Dr Adrian Kessler, who runs the Kessler Institute for patients
suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. Erring against ethics, Dr Kessler harvests
the brain cells of a patient suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease, who had shown
a brief period of recovery while under his care. The procedure is illegal, but
Dr Kessler is driven in his obsession to find a cure. So far only a few mice in
his laboratory have survived for more than a few months.
Josephine Rinaldi
is a young lawyer, whose father suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease. Unable to
cope with the demands that the disease makes on them, Josephine struggles to
care for him while fulfilling the demands of her job. It doesn’t help that
during his brief lucid spells, he is extremely critical and abrasive towards the
very daughter who cares for him. As the sole surviving family member (her
mother has died of cancer and her older brother died as a result of drowning),
Jo has no one to appeal to for help.
Her boss, Matthew
Dawson, who legally represents Dr Kessler, offers her father’s admission into Dr
Kessler’s Institute. But then her dad complains to her that he is not happy
there and that people keep disappearing all the time.
PI Scott Benson
finds out that there is foul play afoot at the institute. At least three patients
have died, after showing marked improvement. Jo’s own attempts to find out more
cause her to lose her job, and increasingly put both her and her father at
risk.
At first Dr
Kessler’s desire to find a cure seems well intentioned, even if his methods are
all wrong. He genuinely wants to help people have a better quality of life. He
says, Such was the nature of a disease that attacked the essence of
personality. He wonders, What are we but memory and knowledge amassed over
time. If all that vanishes, what’s left? But the road to hell, they say, is
paved with good intentions, and Dr Kessler ignores all ethics in his drive to
get what he wants.
The author
intersperses the fictional narrative with information about this deadly
disease. Her research on both the medical and the legal aspects feels convincing
and intuitive to the story. The scientific bits were toned down to appeal to a
lay reader.
The book is fast
paced; there were parts I read with seemingly my heart in my mouth.
Scott is a
swashbuckling character, with his own interesting back story that becomes
involved in the main one. He was a secretive person, and there was trouble in
his past that came out in believable bits. But there were some errors regarding
his name. From being Scott Benson in the earlier chapters, he suddenly changes to Scott Bennett later on in the book.
Another error was
in Chapter 32, where Dr Kessler tells Jo, The more time that passes, the
higher the likelihood that he will digress. Shouldn’t that be regress?
I had an issue
with the main character. There were many times when Jo appeared naïve at best,
and stupid at worst. Also, the name, Maggie, changed to Margaret within the
same dialogue scene. I hope the author rectifies these errors.
The story gives us
an idea of the challenges faced by the caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients. We
feel a sense of sympathy for caregivers who receive no appreciation from those
they care for.
The book also
creates a frightening scenario in which medical experts put all morals and
ethics aside in the hope of playing God, pitting it against the all-too familiar scenario of a small minnow taking on an adversary many sizes too big.
The book ended in a completely unexpected way, and there was at least one element that I found confusing and can't ask about without creating a spoiler.
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