Poison Pill centers around a hospital internist who discovers a common thread between the cases of two young patients who present with serious health issues. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

Believe it or not, the ultimate inspiration for this novel goes all the way back to a single day in medical school. During my second-year pharmacology course, there was one lecture that departed from the usual lectures on pharmaceutical drugs. It presented an introductory overview of major herbal supplements, not to turn us medical students into herbal experts, but to let us know what else is out there. That, in turn, got me curious about the parallel industry of herbal medicine and the differences between that industry and the pharmaceutical industry. One of the biggest differences is related to regulation: pharmaceutical products undergo a stringent approval process through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), yet the FDA treats herbal supplements the same way they do foods, so that regulations for those products are more lax.

Many years later, when it came time for me to write my third Mark Lin medical thriller, I knew I had to touch upon these two topics. Plenty of past medical thrillers have already tackled the pharmaceutical industry alone, and few have taken on herbal medicine. As far as I know, there isn’t another medical thriller where both the herbaceutical and pharmaceutical industries are presented in parallel within the same novel, in order for readers to compare and contrast the two. I like to think of myself as a trailblazer with this type of story in the genre.

Can you share with us a little about the research required to get the medical aspects of your storyline just right?

With any medical thriller I write, my research involves reviewing facts about the medical conditions I feature in the story, plus stuff about nonmedical topics that are integrated into the plot. For Poison Pill, that means ensuring no factual inaccuracies related to, for example, kidney failure and atherosclerosis, as well as certain procedures with the FDA. Also, I took a look at where things stood with weight loss medications, so that incorporating references to Ozempic and Wegovy in this novel grounded the story in realism and achieved the feeling that the story’s events could very well come true. Interestingly enough, the fictional pharmaceutical weight loss drug and its manufacturer in my novel, Naxipil by Tixerix Pharmaceuticals, is an oral GLP-1 medication, and this comes on the heels of real-life oral weight loss medications hitting the market to replace injectable weight loss drugs.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from Poison Pill?

I hope that readers understand that medicine has risks, whether they are herbal supplements or pharmaceuticals. Herbal supplements may seem safe because they are natural, but that is not always true. Pharmaceuticals may seem safe because they undergo a rigid FDA approval process, but side effects can still come to light in postmarket surveillance. In the end, is one form of medicine really better than the other, or are they just equally risky in different ways?

Can you give us a peek inside the next book in the Dr. Mark Lin Medical Thrillers series? Where will it take readers?

Usually, I prefer not to go into plot specifics for a novel I am writing until I officially unveil it for preordering. What I will do, though, is provide a vague and general overview of what this next book entails.

The upcoming fourth novel of the Dr. Mark Lin Medical Thrillers series will be a two-part saga where the events of the first part lay the groundwork for events in the second part. It will also dive into two kinds of issues where the world of medicine crosses into other professions. Specifically, one deals with medicolegal matters, and the other looks at medicine crossing paths with the world of business and finance. I am sure that readers will enjoy brainstorming the many possibilities of what this will entail. But rest assured. The story I have in mind is one that I believe will be very thrilling because it’s highly original. It’s another medical thriller tale that has never been written before, by any author, and I intended to be the first to tell it.

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