At Ellsford University, a small New England college a research physician and other college staff are excitedly at work on a revolutionary new vaccine that will almost surely stop the spread of Aids. The research staff is so exited that they have decided to move on into human trials without the long wait for complicated government approval. Their big funder is a private Japanese pharmaceutical giant and is pressuring the team to develop this new drug so they can get it to market. The firm, Nitshi, Inc., is also a big contributor to the college so the Dean and other staff are anxious to do anything to please their biggest contributor. Maybe even to the point of turning their head the other way in the face of unexplained deaths – could these deaths actually be murder?
Four students and two professors all die of suspicious “suicides” or just simply disappear. Sammy Greene, a precocious junior in Communications runs her own call-in talk show on the campus radio station. Her program is very popular because she does not hesitate to expose dirty laundry on the air. Of course, she has made some enemies in the college administration and maybe even losing her boyfriend who is a medical student working in the research laboratories.
But Sammy digs and digs and eventually puts together all the pieces of a very intricate puzzle. She herself almost becomes a fifth student victim as the research doctor and the CEO of Nitshi have drugged her and strapped her to a table about to inject her with the Aids virus. She is rescued in the nick of time in the final exciting chapter.
I don’t want to give too much away or you might not want to pick this book up. Suffice to say it is excellent and will keep you turning pages all night long. I give “Dead Air” an 8 of 10 on the Weaver meter.
