Easter is the perfect time for a cozy mystery! Cut Out Cookie is just the ticket. Plus enjoy delicious Easter Recipes from Auntie Clem’s Bakery and a crossover with Reg Rawlins Psychic Investigator!
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Read the rules and more teasers at The Purple Booker. Anyone can play along.
Bitter Paradise by Ross Pennie is the fifth installment of his A Dr. Zol Szabo Medical Mystery series, and it is a thrilling read for anyone who enjoys medical mysteries and viral outbreak tropes. It is the first one I have read, but wouldn’t hesitate to pick up any of the others. Good cast of characters, easy to read, with enough backstory to understand what is going on. Following the story of Dr. Zed’s son and his friend as well as their virus-hunting parents, this book can be enjoyed by readers of both young adult and adult age groups. And best of all, of course, it is set in Canada. Nice to see a Canadian setting.
Pennie takes the reader on an intriguing journey as he lays down plenty of rabbit trails/red herrings for them to follow with enough clues along the way to keep them engaged. With lots of twists and turns, Bitter Paradise challenges the reader to try to solve the mystery even as they become engrossed in it. It’s a great read and a challenging mystery with lots of twists and turns.
Oh, and let’s not forget a neurodivergent main character and a terrorist/organized crime subplot as well, just to keep things interesting! This one hits all of the buttons for me.
Mrs. Simon just collapsed at her desk. She looks awful. I called 911. I need you to come down here.
Ross Pennie, Bitter Paradise
Summary
After weeks of torture at the hands of Syria’s secret police, the bombing of his villa in the ancient city of Aleppo, and the murder of his daughter, trauma surgeon Dr. Hosam Khousa flees his fractured homeland with his wife and son. They make their way to Canada as refugees, where Hosam is forced to trade his prestigious scalpel for a barber’s humble clippers. Though he aches to regain his once- prominent surgical career, cutting hair in Hamilton, Ontario, seems a safe way to make a living, until a fellow Syrian is slashed to death in the barbershop. The ensuing gangland vendetta entangles Hosam and threatens his family.
At the same time, epidemic investigators Dr. Zol Szabo and Natasha Sharma are battling an outbreak of vaccine-resistant polio that has struck the city with terrifying fury. When Hosam visits a friend clinging to life in the intensive care unit, he spots something that might help the investigation but will ruin his chance of retaking his place in the operating theater. The Great White North is not the sanctuary he expected, but it’s a bitter paradise he must learn to navigate.
