{"id":1008,"date":"2011-02-25T14:29:50","date_gmt":"2011-02-25T19:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.e357.net\/beingernest\/?p=1008"},"modified":"2011-02-26T12:17:35","modified_gmt":"2011-02-26T17:17:35","slug":"the-dark-x-a-medical-mystery-and-african-adventure-by-jerold-m-lowenstein-25-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/the-dark-x-a-medical-mystery-and-african-adventure-by-jerold-m-lowenstein-25-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dark X: A Medical Mystery and African Adventure by Jerold M. Lowenstein (2\/5 Stars)"},"content":{"rendered":"
[amazon_image id=”1450239234″ target=”_blank” size=”Medium” link=”true” ]<\/div>\n

\u201cThe Dark X: A Medical Mystery and African Adventure\u201d is far from polished and the author telegraphs his punches every time, but it’s not a bad read if you’re into medical and scientific adventure. The hero(s) are an absurdly good looking MD,\u00a0 Dr. Tony Miller and and equally good looking Ph.D.,\u00a0 Suzanne Albrecht, one who is researching the language and sex habits of the bonobo chimpanzees.
\n
\nWhen Tony diagnoses Suzanne with an FUO (fever, unknown origin) shortly before her return from the jungles of the funding circuit to the jungles of Africa, she gets a billionaire friend to hire him on as her personal physician so she can go on her trip as planned.\u00a0 What follows is an extended episode of “Beautiful People in Danger,” including everything from being captured by revolutionary madmen to coming down to the wire on curing Suzanne’s disease.\u00a0 The ending reminded me a bit of Crichton’s “Congo,” complete with the need to communicate with the chimps in order to save the day.<\/p>\n

I probably sound pretty harsh here, and it’s not like the book has nothing going for it. Facts, for one.<\/p>\n

The author, Jerold M. Lowenstein<\/a>, is a “a physician, researcher and science writer in San Francisco, where” the book opens.\u00a0 Page by page he unpacks his trove of knowledge on everything from pathology to sailing to high fashion (the Jane Goodall type is, against all odds,\u00a0 a clothes-horse). Clearly he lives up to the researcher part of his billing.<\/p>\n

“The Dark X” aspires to be a cross between a Michael Crichton novel and an episode of House<\/em>, but falls far short of its $18.95 price. The writing’s not great, it’s a debut novel, and it’s self published (he sent me a copy), but if it was going for $4.99 as an eBook, I’d recommend it. Until then, maybe you should just wait for the movie.<\/p>\n

Product Description (Amazon)<\/h3>\n

At home in San Francisco, between research trips to Africa, renowned primatologist Suzanne Albrecht finds herself suffering from an unexplained fever. Dr. Tony Miller, one of the sharpest diagnosticians in San Francisco, is determined to uncover the cause.<\/p>\n

But Suzanne doesn’t have time for hospitals and multitudes of tests; she’s scheduled to return to Africa to continue her research on the bonobos, a species of pygmy chimpanzees. Still concerned about her medical condition, she persuades the single handsome doctor to accompany her on her trip abroad.<\/p>\n

Tony accepts the invitation, but once in Africa, he soon finds himself facing perils he hadn’t imagined. Not only do Tony and Suzanne become embroiled in a tense political situation that almost costs them their lives, but Suzanne’s condition continues to worsen. Tony must solve the riddle of Suzanne’s mysterious illness while confronting his true feelings about Suzanne, who is an enigma herself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1008"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1018,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008\/revisions\/1018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}