TAMPERED

Dr. Zol Szabo chose public health for its noble ideals and predictable hours. He never expected to be intimidated by the Prime Minister's Office, roughed up by the RCMP, or face extermination by a Hamilton gangster family. Though Zol and his team have investigated every centimetre of Camelot Lodge, a residence for healthy seniors blessed with generous pensions and high-ranking political connections, the source of the converted mansion's spate of fatal food poisonings remains elusive. As the death count rises, the outbreak threatens Zol's beloved grandfather Art Greenwood, a military veteran, engineering genius, and piano whiz.The Mounties muscle in, and Zol's boss threatens him with exile to North Overshoe. Zol's friend and colleague HamishWakefield, obsessed with microbes and car washes, discovers dangers at the Lodge that make the rabid bats in the turret and the dumpster-diving cook seem like minor indiscretions. As Zol and Hamish struggle with the scientific details, Zol's private-eye girlfriend Colleen tails potential suspects, and the health unit's epidemic specialist Natasha Sharma sifts through mountains of disappointing data. It takes Art Greenwood,marshalling the insights of his silver-haired companions, to expose the deaths forwhat they are, a string of murders.Decades after wars are over, peace is not as simple as a comfy chair in Camelot.

Praise for Tainted, the first in the Dr. Zol Szabo series
"TAINTED is fascinating and fast-paced, a medical thriller with the high-stakes tension of a frightening epidemic.Ross Pennie knows how to weave real science with crackling suspense." - Tess Gerritsen

Ross Pennie is a practising physician, an infectious-disease specialist in Brantford, Ontario, and a professor atMcMaster University.