Lethal Measures

Joanna Blalock #6

by Leonard Goldberg

It's a quiet evening in Los Angeles when an explosion rips through a residential neighborhood, leveling half a suburban block, and leaving twenty people dead...  

Forensic pathologist Joanna Blalock is called to the scene, expected to make sense of the senseless violence, which appears to be the handiwork of incompetent terrorists, who blew themselves up along with so many innocent lives. But when Joanna uncovers a link in the evidence to an unsolved homicide, a more sinister picture emerges; and when the only potential witness to the bomb blast is killed, a case of accidental death suddenly looks like an incredibly daring and diabolical plot of cold-blooded murder.

Genres: Medical, Mystery, Thriller

416 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2000

About the author

Leonard Goldberg is an American physicist, professor of medicine, and the author of the Joanna Blalock series of medical thrillers.

His novels have been translated into a dozen languages and sold more than a million copies worldwide. Leonard Goldberg is himself a consulting physician affiliated with the UCLA Medical Center, where he holds an appointment as Clinical Professor of Medicine. A sought-after expert witness in medical malpractice trials, he is board certified in internal medicine, hematology and rheumatology, and has published over a hundred scientific studies in peer-reviewed journals.

Leonard Goldberg's writing career began with a clinical interest in blood disorders. While involved in a research project at UCLA, he encountered a most unusual blood type. The patient’s red blood cells were O-Rh null, indicating they were totally deficient in A, B and Rh factors and could be administered to virtually anyone without fear of a transfusion reaction. In essence, the patient was the proverbial "universal" blood donor. This finding spurred the idea for a story in which an individual was born without a tissue type, making that person’s organs transplantable into anyone without worry of rejection. His first novel, Transplant, revolved around a young woman who is discovered to be a universal organ donor and is hounded by a wealthy, powerful man in desperate need of a new kidney. The book quickly went through multiple printings and was optioned by a major Hollywood studio.

Dr. Goldberg is a native of Charleston and a long-time California resident. He currently divides his time between Los Angeles and an island off the coast of South Carolina.

Reviews

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of the better medical thrillers I've read recently, and I think the key was Goldberg's style of writing the stories of good and evil in parallel until the two merge at the climax. The book opens with two people discussing things in a house while a group of Mexican men sit in another room oblivous to the discussion. When the men are called into the room and fitted with orange vests by the couple, they think it's to prepare for a bank robbery, but the couple quickly leaves the house and detonates the bombs embedded in the vests.
Medical Examiner Joanna Blalock is called to the scene of the explosion, which has flattened that house and others, and left only fragments of its victims behind. This book is apparently part of a series, as Blalock seems to have a history with the lead investigator from the police department, a storyline that plays out throughout the book. Meanwhile, Blalock begins finding suspicious clues in the remains found at the crime scene, as well as another body part found in a seemingly unrelated incident in a location nowhere near the explosion.
Goldberg alternates both plotlines, both explaining the alterior motives the couple had for blowing up the house with the men inside and describing the progress Blalock makes in trying to track down the couple based only on the small tissue fragments she has. At times, the two plots merge, especially when the bombers thing Blalock is getting too close to finding them, but it's only once she actually does that he brings them together for good. There were a few coincidental occurrences and parts of the investigation that seemed too easy to be real, but overall, I felt the author put together a solid book.
Considering the author is a doctor, I was surprised that he made an error I point out in every book I read that it occurs. When he's introducing the partner of Joanna's love interest cop, he mentions that the partner was shot on duty (perhaps the plot of an earlier book) but his life was saved by someone who donated extra-rare AB- blood to him. While it's true that AB- is the rarest blood type, I highly doubt ER doctors and nurses are going to go out looking for AB- blood donors, when any O-, A-, or B- blood will do, and the former two types are fairly common and plentiful in blood banks that serve trauma centers. I would think a doctor who knows about DNA typing tissue samples to match them up would also know basic blood type matching.

[Jacob Peled · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like medical thrillers you would like this book as well as other book by Leonard. It is a fast pacing book, with lots of twists.

[Evelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a religious terrorist group sets off a bomb in an urban neighborhood, forensic pathologist Joanna Blalock is asked to do the autopsies by the FBI. Assigned to this grim task, Blalock quickly makes several intriguing discoveries, chiefly among them is that several of the victims were in the terminal stages of fatal diseases, and some of them wore artificial limbs.

A kinder, gentler "Kay Scarpetta." Sixth in the series featuring Joanna Blalock.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

JoAnna Blalock #7

[Donna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay read, but nothing special

[Kiminmiki]

easy read, about bombs and terrorists.

[Ratforce]

Goldberg, a physician himself, has written a novel that not only includes forensic science, but also political conspiracy.

[Denisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another rating: 8/10

[Priscilla Del Gesso · Rating 4 out of 5]

good book.