Do you want to write a medical thriller or mystery?

Has the nightly TV news made you think about writing a novel on an Ebola or measles epidemic?

#The first step in writing is a medical thriller is research.

This type of research needs depth and breadth. Not surprisingly, many medical and scientific thrillers have been written by physicians or scientists, like Robin Cook, Michael Crichton, Kathy Reichs, and myself.

Let me explain what depth and breadth means. Someone (If I tell you who it will ruin the mystery.) “poisons” a diet doctor in Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight. This toxin was the cause of a rash of real poisonings in New Mexico in the 1980s. I wove the information from two scientific articles into my tale of an intentional poisoning and set the novel in Albuquerque as an oblique clue.

To add authenticity to all my medical mysteries/thrillers, I reference key articles in the “Scientific Epilogues” of each novel.

How did I find such arcane articles? I read articles on science and medicine in newspapers and magazines and on line. I also read scientific journals, especially the journal Science, and look for trends. For example, the dead diet doctor had been studying ways to modify the bacteria in the guts of obese subjects as a way to help them lose weight. I thought this research had humorous aspects and is a promising area of research.

#The second step in writing medical mysteries is creating a filing system that allows retrieval of articles by several headings.

If you're not careful, all your research becomes a lot of clutter. So I cross-reference materials I stash in real and virtual files carefully. I note not only the medical or scientific issue discussed in articles but also the location (if outside the U.S. or in New Mexico) where the research was done and the possible social significance of the work.

For example, I’ve had files on Ebola and other tropical diseases for twenty years ago. No, I don’t plan to write a novel on Ebola, but I know these articles are good sources of information on the problems faced by health care workers during epidemics and the responses of citizens to quarantines.

# The third step in writing a medical novels is basically scientific education.

It’s finding clear ways to explain complex issues in human terms.

Among the propaganda spouted by Cuban tour guide in 2013 was the statement: Cuban scientists had patented a drug for cancer. When I got home, I investigated her claim and found researchers in Havana had patented a therapeutic cancer vaccine to treat a rather rare type of lung cancer (non-small cell). This drug revs up a patient’s own immune system to produce cells, which recognize substances found on the surface of tumor cells but not on the surface of normal cells. These immune cells then slay the cancer cells, but not the normal cells.

Okay that’s a heavy dose of science. What’s the social relevance? This patent demonstrates several Cuban scientists are doing competitive science, and the Cuban government understand the importance of commercialization of their research. I also discovered U.S. scientists were trying to augment existing scientific exchanges between the U.S. and Cuba, despite the embargo on Cuba. (Editorial in the journal Science on June 6, 2014.)

I thought Sara Almquist, as an epidemiologist and heroine of my previous medical thrillers Coming Flu and Ignore the Pain, would be the perfect protagonist to do a little “scientific diplomacy” in Cuba. The result is my thriller Malignancy. Of course, Sara gets involved in a lot more than science; it wouldn’t be a thriller without danger.

So are you ready to write a medical mystery or thriller?

MAKE SCIENCE FUN - READ A NOVEL ON SCIENCE

The U.S.’s rank in the Global Innovative Index dropped from 7^th to 10^th this year. The validity of the survey published by the World Intellectual Property Organization, an agency of the United Nations, and INSEAD, a business school could be questioned (Education Week, J. Tomassini blog, July 9, 2012). Reports like this cause many to worry about science literacy of Americans and to wonder about the U.S.’s public and private investments in science education. Please forget politics and just keep reading please.

Making science interesting and fun for kids.

The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate on Education, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the National Academies of Sciences, NIH Office of Science Education, and dozens of museums and conservation groups have invested in science education programs for children and teens (K-12). Most of these programs have teamed scientists with educators to create innovative and fun science education modules and curriculum for students. These programs work but do not reach enough children, especially those in poor school districts. If you doubt these generalizations, Google any of these organizations.

What about making science interesting and fun for adults?

Fun depends on the eyes of the beholders. There are hundreds books on science topics (medicine, the environment, astronomy, etc) published for the general public every year. Obviously many adults enjoy these books.

A few of these “science books” read like action novels, particularly Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone and The Demon in the Freezer. If you like horror, it’s hard to beat Preston’s description of the symptoms of smallpox with the skin peeling from the live bodies. And John Barry really “develops the character” of several of the dedicated (but quirky) scientists, leading medicine at the time of The Great Influenza (the early 1900’s).

Okay, you say, but I really like novels better than non-fiction.

Try a novel with a science theme. These novels are not stodgy textbooks but real mysteries, thrillers and romances. The science in these novels adds credence and color to the novel but does not overwhelm the plot.

For example, one reader asked me why I didn’t mention cytokine storms in Coming Flu. I know many severe flu symptoms are due to a cytokine storm (an over reaction of the body’s immune system to the flu virus), but I’ve seen a glazed look in the eyes of too many college biology students when the cytokine storms were explained. Despite the “short cut,” you’ll learn a bit about vaccine development and immunology from Coming Flu. More importantly you’ll think about the wonders and limits of modern biology.

Fun books with tidbits of science written by scientists or physicians

My medical thriller Coming Flu is the point of view of an epidemiologist trapped in a quarantined community because of an unstoppable flu virus. My next novel Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight (due out in April) is from the point of view of an associate dean in a medical school investigating charges of scientific misconduct against a “diet” doctor. I was a professor in nutrition and toxicology.

Robin Cook, a physician, wrote more than twenty-five medical thrillers, the most famous being Coma.

Kathy Reichs, an anthropology professor, writes of modern forensic anthropological techniques in her Tempe Brennan series of crime novels.

Camille Minichino, a retired physicist, writes mysteries with titles based on the periodic table.

So why not borrow one of these books from the library or better still buy one. I think fans of mysteries and thrillers, will enjoy these books. They may even decide that science is fun.

J.L. Greger and Bug
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