The Cure

Wydra's debut novel is a promising, if overlong, thriller. David Rathbone, a researcher for Croft, Detroit's major pharmaceutical company, has discovered a cure for AIDS. However, Croft's president is part of a secret international drug cartel that wants to postpone any cure for AIDS until the market expands. After Rathbone is gunned down, his deputy, Luke Chinsky, and Chinsky's girlfriend, reporter Brenda Byrne, pick up the cause. The police want the killer, Chinsky wants the cure and Byrne wants the story. The novel's pace seems slow, despite a plethora of action, including a total of five murders. One problem is Wydra's diction: He never met an adjective he didn't like. In one paragraph, for example, the environment is ``calm,'' earth tones are ``muted,'' an eye is ``lazy,'' the pace is ``slow,'' the piped-in music ``breezy'' and the ambiance ``bucolic.'' Another problem is narrative: he takes more than 250 pages to get from the first murder to the second. From then on, however, the action is nonstop, the plot appropriately curvy and the main characters serviceable, if not memorable. Readers who make it to the second half of the book will find themselves engrossed. (Nov.)