Awesome Australian scientific thriller.
David Tran came to Australia from Vietnam as a child refugee and has grown into a brilliant scientist. The immunology drug he invented could be enormously successful but first it needs to be tested on humans. What David does next leaves everyone reeling, battling with guilt and unanswered questions. Every character holds a piece of the puzzle; the reader gets to see them all put together into one surprisingly devastating picture.
It’s not often that science and thrills come together, but Susan Hurley blends them masterfully in Eight Lives. It’s Hurley’s first novel but her biography says she “has worked in medical research and the pharmaceutical industry for more than thirty years”, and it shows. There’s so many interesting issues here: the ethics of scientific experimentation on humans and animals, refugees, poisonous secrets, greed, murder, spin, domestic violence, racism and one deeply irritating vegan.
What more could you want? Get behind Hurley and hopefully she’ll write many more as good as this one.
