Flawless

Medical detective Nate McCormick moves back to San Francisco to be with his girlfriend. The Bay area holds bad memories for him, and things get even worse when a phone call plunges him into a conspiracy between Asian villains and a biotech firm. The company is desperate to cover up its cosmetic injections gone wrong--the recipients develop hideous facial cancers. Scott Brick is adept at the Asian, Indian, female, and children's voices called for. He also knows just how to play the angst-ridden Nate, who constantly second-guesses himself and wisecracks at tense moments. His horror at finding his friend, and later others, slaughtered is palpable. The plot may not be flawless, but Brick's performance is. J.B.G. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

July 16, 2007
Stanford med student Spanogle’s high-energy sequel to 2006’s Isolation Ward
shares its predecessor’s virtues and, well, flaws. Smart-alecky Dr. Nathaniel McCormick, starting a new life in the San Francisco Bay Area after quitting his job at the Centers for Disease Control, stumbles on photographs of living people with hideous facial tumors. Before they can die from their disease, however, the sufferers are being horrifically murdered in an apparent effort to prevent the authorities from noticing their condition. Lurking in the background is an unsavory gang of Chinese mobsters with a particular interest in the region’s biotech industry. McCormick hunts frantically for answers as the bodies pile up. Spanogle’s efforts at engineering poignant moments clunk more often than not, and his hero’s tendency to crack wise in dire situations strains believability, but he has an undeniable gift for creating tension and movement. For page-turning fun, this gory medical thriller has all the elements.