The Trial, a review by Joanna

Dani MacLochlainn never got over the way her medical student boyfriend Theo got up one night and left her without saying goodbye ten years ago. She went to extreme lengths to try and find him, but has finally moved on, and is taking a junior professor post at her old university on the outskirts of Dublin. She learns that the well regarded medical research department is running a trial of a new wonder drug for Alzheimers disease, led by a charismatic clinician, which is of intense interest to her because her beloved mother is fading away from the same disease. The findings sound promising – so why did a nurse who raised concerns about side-effects die in suspicious circumstances, and who are the sinister drug company employees lurking on campus?

This is mostly told from Dani’s third person present POV in chapters that alternate between 2014 and the present. She’s a sympathetic character and we feel her mounting frustration as no one takes her concerns about Theo’s uncharacteristic absence seriously. In 2024 she’s older, but still an impulsive risk-taker, and once her suspicions are raised, she’ll stop at nothing – including some highly dubious tactics – to get to the truth. I’ve worked as an investigator running clinical trials for nine years, so aspects of this didn’t ring true for me, but they aren’t things that would bother the average layperson. The plot has a series of twists that are so well done that I didn’t see them coming, and enough cunning misdirection to keep me guessing.  Thanks to NetGalley and Quercus for the ARC.