Danger and Deception Spread as Quickly as the Leprosy Epidemic in Gil Smolin’s New Medical Thriller

April 25, 2005 -- "Reign of the Rat" offers a harrowing glimpse of where we might be headed if we don’t put the brakes on over-prescribed antibiotics.

A farmer in Nepal notices a sudden rotting of his fingers, rapidly followed by pneumonia… then a horrific death. Thus begins a medical thriller that takes archaeobiologist Michael Cohen and his former lover, Dr. Alice Morgan-Wright, from San Francisco to the Himalayas to the Arctic Circle. As a virulent, drug-resistant leprosy epidemic spreads, Michael and Alice set off on a danger-filled quest for a cure. Stalked by unknown assailants, their only protection is each other and the mysterious amulet of the Order of St. Lazarus. Their sole hope: to unearth the frozen remains of a medieval corpse destroyed by the Black Plague.

"Reign of the Rat" will be available in bookstores in May. Bookstores can order through Ad Lib Books or Baker & Taylor.

About the author:
Gil Smolin, M.D. is a Clinical Professor and Research Ophthalmologist at the University of California Medical School, San Francisco. The author of seven textbooks and over two hundred research articles, he has lectured worldwide and serves as a reviewer for many ophthalmology magazines. Dr. Smolin has worked for many years in the developing world and received a humanitarian award for his service. He is one of the founders and a board member of a public charity devoted to offering medical assistance to the needy in other countries. He served as a consultant to the New Hope Leprosy Hospital in Muniguda, Orissa, India, where he treated and lived among those with leprosy.

"Reign of the Rat" is Dr. Smolin’s first novel.

About the publisher:
Ad Lib Books is a publisher of fiction novels.