Smokescreen: A Novel of Medical Intrigue

Timeliness of theme, a seductive tingle of insider authenticity and a Latino protagonist are pluses in this debut medical thriller by a biology professor and former expert consultant at the National Institutes of Health, but pedestrian writing blunts its effect. In a promising but overloaded plot, Avila mixes the latest medical breakthroughs related to Alzheimer's and Huntington's disease with the sleazy duplicity of the tobacco industry. In 1978, Dr. Karen Williams, an American biologist doing research on Huntington's disease in South America, is saved from a plane crash on Lake Maracaibo by Eloy C rdova Santiago, a 15-year-old Venezuelan boy whose father died of the disease. A grateful Karen welcomes Eloy as her assistant. He is an apt pupil who makes important discoveries in the field of neurotoxins while still at university and then uses his father's visa to leave Venezuela and continue his career at the University of Puerto Rico. While there, he falls in love with his mentor's daughter, Maria Rodriguez, but they become estranged after she is raped while he is held at knifepoint. By 1986, Elroy, now renowned, is offered a position at the NIH by Dr. Williams. Maria, who has also pursued a medical career, later turns up in Washington, where she rises to the top and becomes the U.S. surgeon general. With Maria's help, Eloy uncovers a plot by the tobacco industry to overthrow the president. Avila's prose is colorless and plodding, and the narrative is cluttered with pulpy subplots and clich d characters. (July)