REVIEWS FROM MANYA NOGG
A PERILOUS CONCEPTION
LARRY KARP
Poisoned Pen Press November, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59058-973-1
This review is totally out of character for me, but I've enjoyed Larry's other books and would hate to see readers pass this up if they, like me, didn't love the opening few, very short, chapters.
I met Larry about fifteen years ago at a national mystery writer's conference and found him and his writing ideas interesting. At the time his music box mysteries were going strong. I was fascinated by the way he wove the
information into the story. One item was a little silk cabbage with a
tiny rabbit coming out of it. My husband and I later had the privilege, when we were in Seattle, of visiting Larry and his fabulous music box collection. And when I turned a corner and found myself face to face with that adorable little rabbit, I wanted to take it home with me.
Larry gave the same dedication to his next series, using Scott Joplin as his "hero" and a background of Rag Time music.
Those were followed by a wonderful medical tome, FIRST DO NO HARM, that so impressed me I asked his publisher if I might pitch it to a Hollywood producer.
So now that you have an idea of my regard for his work, you will understand my upset when I was not loving A PERILOUS CONCEPTION. I felt over-whelmed by details of a subject that didn't particularly interest me, in vitro fertilization. Now, Larry actually is a physician who specialized in high risk obstetric patients so OB is his territory. But the story is laid in the 1970s when the procedure was an unknown commodity, though it was being worked on by different physicians around the world.
The first few chapters deal with the doctor and his colleague Dr. Giselle Hearn's efforts to use the technique on a frustrated couple, Joyce and James Kennett. If they were successful, it would be a world class break-through and they would become rich and famous as the first physicians to make the technique work.
But by chapter four, we have a murder and suicide and enter Detective
Baumgartner. And now the race, or I should say contest, is on. The doctor
has to avoid anything that would make him look suspicious of wrong doing and Baumgartner is tenacious in his quest when he begins to feel there is more to the situation than meets the eye or fits the information.
Being the impatient kind, as a personal experience, I would have preferred a bit shorter cat and mouse game, but I have to admit that the denouement is absolutely out in left field and delightful.