Number of words : 6900
Percent of complex words : 12.4
Average syllables per word : 1.5
Average words per sentence : 16.6
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 11.6
Flesch : 58.9
Flesch-Kincaid : 9.2
PEOPLE
Karen Rees
A woman unlucky enough to catch a Monte Carlo disease.
Paula Rees
Her just as susceptible sister.
Dr Packard
The man advising Karen on treatment.
Mohammed
A botanist beau of Paula's.
Martin
Paula's boyfriend.
Meryl Streep
An actress.
Karen Silkwood
A whistle-bowler.
CONCEPTS
Monte Carlo diseases
Random sicknesses made as an evolutionary mutating biological warfare project.
PLACES
Gabon
African country
Libreville People's Hospital
Where Paula died.
PLOT
A biological warfare experiment decided to skip hard human research and just use evolution, mutation and trillions of trials to come up with possible new weapons. The problem was, some of it got out of containment, and occasionally these come together to produce a very nasty new disease. They called it the Monte Carlo problem.
Karen Rees is unlucky enough to catch one of these extremely deadly things, and realises her sister Paula will be vulnerable too, and indeed, does have it. Her sister is a reporter than runs around the world looking into ecodisasters - and when she gets surprise news of her death in a foreign hospital she wants to find out what happened.
The drug treatment she was being given was actually a placebo - a triple blind trial used - lying to patients who would never agree to a double blind trial because half would likely die. Telling them they were all getting the medication.
Paula has cracking skills, so she gets into the computers computer system by finding a dumb porn addict via some social engineering and computer work. She turns the triple blind into a quadruple blind, and also starts a Truth In Medicine organisation.
4 out of 5
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