This is an exciting historical novel with real characters and an exposition about medical practices at the close of the nineteenth century. He describes in detail how the drug companies of the day, criminals,greedy doctors and politics are interwoven.

Deadly Cure by Lawrence Goldstone.
The major topic of this mystery is very interesting, because it includes a true account of  early products made by the Bayer Corporation and other drug companies in the first years of the twentieth century. These businesses often started as dye companies and expanded to develop and patent medicines that often killed rather than healed people. The reader learns that Bayer actually patented a drug besides aspirin called  ”Heroin” and guess what it contained? Before 1906 when the food and drug administration started to regulate patent medicines, they could be deadly, and people often overdosed or became addicted to cocaine and heroin through the unregulated, often “quack,” remedies that promised a quick cure for coughs and pains. 
Not only is this topic covered by Goldstone in the plot development, but he also includes a short, fictional discussion of U.S. leftists, anarchists and Jewish dissidents in the early years of the twentieth century.  This combination may sound as though there is too much going on in this mystery, but the combination of these topics provides an interesting, quick read.  At some points, this book is reminiscent of a good Anne Perry novel by its choice of interesting subject matter and plot development.
Only the ending spoiled this good story, because it seemed too contrived and included the unnecessary death of a major character whose participation I would like to  see featured in at least one subsequent mystery.
4.5/5

This book held my attention from page 1!!  I loved the historical information about early medicines, and the characters and story were fabulous.

Great book.  Brilliant plot and main characters.  I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.  Very enjoyable.

Great book! Looking forward to reading more by this author! Highly recommend!

Wow!  This guy can write!  I really enjoy a good historical thriller and this one had just enough twists and turns to keep me turning pages.

I once asked my grandfather why he became a pharmacist. (He graduated the Rhode Island school of pharmacy in 1913.) He replied that he had always been interested in medicine and healing. But attending medical school  was not possible for him,, so he turned to pharmacy. He also said that  major vent in his early teen years was the creation of the Food and Drug Administration by President Theodore Roosevelt.  

Before then, medicine was totally unregulated. There were no uniform legal  guidelines for testing drugs and medications and introducing them to the public. Moreover, large chemical companies in Europe were engaging American doctors to prescribe their experimental drugs to test on their patients, the victims often being the poor. Over the counter "patent drugs," also unregulated, were filled with chemicals and narcotics that could do more harm than good.  It was a perilous time.

Lawrence Goldstone's Fatal Cure is an historical novel st in New York City in 1901, when medicine and pharmacy wee chaotic. An author of both fiction and non-fiction, Goldstone  creates a vivid snapshot of this era . While perhaps melodramatic at times, the characters ring true:: the doctors who treated the high society, the poor immigrants crammed into tenements, the Radicals of Union Square, the jingoistic nationalists intoxicated by the new American colonialism after the Spanish-American War.

There is an Afterword in which the author presents the historical facts behind the novel. Many readers might benefit from reading it first before embarking on the novel itself.

A most enjoyable read. Four and One-Half Stars. I hesitate to give the full five stars was the one graphic scene of sex seemed gratuitous, perhaps excessive, and of questionable necessity.

My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for access to an advance reader copy n exchange for a fair review.