Dr. Robin Cook writes a lot of thrillers involving the medical profession, and the stories often revolve around a hospital setting. A couple other books of his I have read are Outbreak and Fever. If you haven’t read any medical mysteries before, oftentimes the “bad guys” turn out to be immoral medical practitioners. There is some action set in a laboratory, but “Acceptable Risk” is different in that most of the action doesn’t occur in a hospital. The story begins in the 1600’s and describes a typical Salem witch hunt trial held in that day. Kim is a woman of modern times who is interested in the Salem witch trials because an ancestor of hers was killed for being a practicing witch. So Kim gets really involved in trying to research this ancestor and learning as much as she can about her life and why she was thought to be a witch.
Kim’s boyfriend, Edward, is a scientist who is doing some research of his own: He is studying a new drug that might offer great relief to people who are experiencing debilitating depression. The drug has been distilled from hallucinogenic fungi which happens to be similar to a fungus that was growing near the house of Kim’s ancestor. The book did keep my attention in the beginning especially because the writing about the Salem witch trials was very intriguing. If you’re interested in that period of history, you might enjoy reading this novel.
Unfortunately the book has its flaws as well. While the scientific and historical passages are interesting to read, the characters of the story are written to simplistically. They just don’t come alive like characters who are written well seem to do. It’s a fun book to read though, if you can suspend disbelief and accept that people really talk the way they do here. The romance aspect of the story was kind of lame as well. I think I would have enjoyed this more had the two main characters been good friends. The romance aspect just doesn’t add anything to the experience. In fact some of the romantic aspect of the story detracts from the good parts of the book, which are the historical and scientific parts.
I give this book an average rating. What kept me reading “Acceptable Risk” was that I was curious to know what Kim would find out about her Salem ancestor and eager to know how and if her boyfriend’s fungus research would be tied to the ancestor’s life in some way.