Every so often you come across a book that you just know would make a great movie.  As you read you begin to decide who will play each role and wonder in what direction the director will take the movie.  You can even begin to hear the suspenseful music in the background as tension gets greater and you move to the edge of your seat.  Will the bad guy get caught?  Can the female protagonist figure out how to stop the bad guy before his deeds take her down as well?  That is exactly what I went through reading Piggott’s book.

Leslie Pigott has published two books of poetry during the pandemic but in this, her first novel, she brings to the table her scientific knowledge (did I mention that she has a doctorate in biomedical sciences) and an amazing sense of suspense and drama.  If Hitchcock were alive today he would surely turn this into a first-rate movie.  I can see the shadows in the lab as Laina works to create data in the late hours of the night with no one around to figure out what she is up to.  Or the music that plays each time Dr. Strydent debates picking up the phone to call Dr. Fischer about their lab collaboration.  

Dr. Fischer is the perfect female protagonist, Dr. Strydent excels at being an egomaniac, while Laina could not be a better greedy narcissistic laboratory researcher, hanging on to someone else’s coattails.  Needless to say, the characters are well developed.  What makes for a more suspenseful evil setting than a laboratory, especially one that is working on a drug that will be marketed to millions.  It is most certainly a good strong read that I imagine everyone will enjoy!