Mengele's Legacy by David Jay Weinberg
Rutledge Books, Inc. - Sept. 2001
ISBN: 1582441855 - Hardcover
Medical Thriller - for explicit violence and sex

Reviewed by Barbara Buhrer, MyShelf.Com
Buy a Copy

Dr. Izzy Slesinger, America's and the world's most preeminent protein scientist, receives a note from Dr. Pieter Heneke, member of a German drug company, that he has perfected the cure for AIDS. He is convinced AIDS is not caused by HIV but by a genetically engineered cell designedby infamous German, Mengele.

Mengele presented his final solution for a genetically engineered holocaust for Africa to Hitler. He developed a cell (virus) which would break down the immune system. He inoculated 20,000 Africans where many years later manifestations of the cell had broken out, believed to be AIDS. Mengele fled to South America and took his research papers with him. Now those papers are needed to find a way to combat the virus. To destroy the cell and save the world's population from extinction, they must learn how he made the cell.

Slesinger is given the job of finding these journals. His search takes him to Argentina, France and Russia. When he locates the journals he must trace Mengele's experiments.

Germans, loyal to Hitler's ideals, want to use Mengele's cell to promote Hitler's idea of a pure Aryan world. They will stop at nothing to prevent Slesinger from finding the journal.

The premise put forth in this book is chilling. The author presents it in a very believable manner. He convinces the reader that it could be possible.

The action is swift; the characters well-developed. We are given a glimpse of the Hebrew religion, and of the Holocaust.

As is the case with most medical thrillers, there is much technological detail and terminology . . . in this case: protein chains, gene therapy, anti-virals, immune systems, cellular mutation, and more . . . much of which this person, a layman, does not understand.