What a fantastic book about a horrible family.

The first half of the book is a true rags-to-riches story, following the life and rise of Arthur Sackler and his brothers. The son of an immigrant, he came of age during the Great Depression. This man could hustle and there was nothing that could stop him.

The second half is about the pharmaceutical company they purchased and ran. In the 90’s, they created a ridiculously powerful pain killer (OxyContin). In an effort to maximize profit, they pushed the drug onto unsuspecting patients and physicians despite knowing (and hiding) how addictive and dangerous it was.

The damage is jaw dropping. And like most crimes involving the ultra rich, the family members who ran the company (and used it as their personal piggy bank) got away with it.

At first glance, this book seems to be a biography of Jennifer Doudna, a biochemist and one of the pioneers of CRISPR research.

While there is some focus on her upbringing and the things that may have driven her to become a fantastic scientist, the book is really about the wide range of characters who helped discover CRISPR DNA sequences and their potential applications in modern medicine.

I’ve heard CRISPR and CRISPR-based technology mentioned in various things I’ve read and how it is something that could potentially revolutionize medicine. But that’s really all I know about it.

This book digs into how Jennifer and her team of researchers discovered the CRISPR process — essentially duplicating the way that bacteria has fought off viruses for eons — and how it could ultimately be used for various therapies, treatments and even diagnoses.

The book briefly mentions its use in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines for COVID-19 as well as some of the more controversial and ethically questionable uses — editing the genes of a fetus, for example, to choose certain traits (which will then be passed down to its own children).

This was an enjoyable and informative read and it covered all sorts of things from the science of CRISPR, legal issues related to patents, and the use cases for CRISPR based technologies today.

Quick summary: Washed up author (Jake) teaching a writing workshop finds out a former student of his (Evan) — who had an amazing idea for a story that was guaranteed to be a best seller — suddenly died without publishing or apparently sharing his story with anyone.

Jake helps himself to the idea and ends up publishing a best selling book. Only… some Internet troll knows the truth and is sending him some anonymous, threatening letters. And so begins a wild goose chase.

I definitely enjoyed this. It starts off a bit slow, but as the story goes on the pace picks up and I couldn’t put it down

I’ll be honest: I *knew* there was going to be a plot twist around a certain character the moment we met them. I just knew it. But the deviousness of it still surprised me and I really wasn’t prepared for how things went down.

That said, some of the threats the anonymous person was making toward Jake felt a bit hollow. Knowing what we knew this person probably did, they couldn’t really threaten Jake without exposing their own crimes. So, that whole thing was kind of strange…

But we find out that it actually doesn’t matter, because there is a longer game at play and Jake is merely a pawn.

It’s crazy.