In his debut novel, Philip Hawley, tackles the age-old dilemma of where to draw the boundaries of medical science as he embeds in Stigma interesting ethical questions and intriguing social commentary concerning the manufacturing of genetically modified genomes and their possible distribution as vaccines. 

The storyline’s protagonist is Pediatric ER physician, Luke McKenna, whose curiosity is piqued when a four-year-old Mayan boy from Guatemala, dies in his ER with symptoms that do not fit the criteria of any known disease. His interest deepens even further when hospital administrators and Guatemalan officials whisk the child’s body away before McKenna can perform a postmortem investigation. This along with his own debilitating nightmares of the time he spent in one of the Pentagon’s most elite and secretive Special Ops units makes for an interesting scenario as McKenna finds himself in the middle of a global conspiracy where he is framed for murder and is stalked by professional killers.

From there, McKenna’s on the run, using his old military training and contacts, as well as his medical expertise, to evade the cops and killers, get to Guatemala where he discovers the same puzzling illness spreading among tribal villages, and face his personal demons. Of course, no novel would be complete without some romance so the conspiracy surrounding McKenna quickly brings him into a terrifying house of mirrors where both he and the woman he loves, Megan Callahan, are at the mercy of a money hungry mad scientist whose total goal is to rid the human race of all genetic mutants. Fortunately for them both Luke’s father, Elmer McKenna (an absent-minded professor type) and his colleague, Ben Wilson, are there to help them when they most need it.  

Start with a great story, inject realistic, multi-dimensional characters, then weave multiple thematic elements together seamlessly and you get an action-packed medical thriller that grips the audience from the onset. However, it is a darker book, people die, but it is not excessively dark since Hawley always gives the characters reason to hope that everything will eventually turn out okay. That being said, one can’t help but get excited when a debut novel appears out of nowhere and dazzles them with such strong writing and storytelling that you can’t believe the author has never done this before. That’s the case with Philip Hawley, Jr.’s  Stigma, one of the best debut thrillers I’ve read in a long time. [tags]Stigma, Philip Hawley, debut novel, fiction, special ops unit, Guatemala, thriller, vaccines, genomes, genetic mutants, mad scientist, medical drama, romance[/tags]