Preventable Tragedies - A Book Review

May 2018 Literature

Preventable Tragedies
by Ruth Shidlo
Hoepoe Publishing, 2017
Amazon $15.99 paperback;$3.92 Kindle
Reviewed by Carl Hoffman

Hard on the heels of her two previous novels, The Rosebush Murders and Murder in the Choir, author and Tel Aviv-based psychologist Ruth Shidlo has feted her readers with a third offering, Preventable Tragedies. Those who enjoyed the earlier works will not be disappointed in this one.

Again, the hero of the story is Detective Helen Mirkin, now assigned to the "National Serious and International Crimes Unit" in Tel Aviv. And once again, Shidlo takes an approach similar to that seen time and again in Ed McBain's iconic 87^th Precinct police procedural detective novels, only now transposed to Israel and expanded to dealing with international crime.

In Preventable Tragedies, Detective Mirkin responds to an Interpol alert about an international drug ring manufacturing counterfeit prescription medicines, and selling them worldwide to fund terrorist groups and activities. A sort of sub-narrative about legitimate drug companies knowingly manufacturing useless food supplements and selling unnecessary medications, both deepens the main story and casts a dark shadow on the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry.

The book is well-researched and written almost academically. This, as well as the two previous Helen Mirkin novels, are available from the author, at www.ruthshidlo.com.

About the author

Carl Hoffman

Carl Hoffman grew up in Boston and was educated in New York and Philadelphia. He held a Ph.D. degree in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania, and lived among headhunting groups in Borneo and a remote hill tribe in the Philippines.

He worked as a university lecturer in the United States, a research anthropologist in Indonesia, and as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines; followed by a series of odd jobs with the U.S. State Department Refugee Programs, the Philippine Department of Education, and the Japanese Embassy in Manila. Dr. Hoffman lived in Israel since 1997 with his wife and two children.

Semi-employed as a freelance writer, his articles appeared more or less regularly in The Jerusalem Post and ESRAmagazine, and sporadically elsewhere. He was amazed and deeply grateful to have won a “First Place” award for “Excellence in Feature Writing” from the American Jewish Press Association for his article, “19 Hours and 20 Minutes in Tel Aviv’s Central Bus Station,” published in the U.S. by Moment Magazine.

Carl is the author of two books: Punan (1986), an anthropological study of a jungle tribe in Borneo, and Lovetaps (2003), a collection of short stories. Dr. Hoffman also taught an advanced course in reading comprehension of academic writing for students in the social sciences at Israel’s Open University.

Dr. Carl Hoffman passed away in December 2019.