Micheal Crichton writing as his alter-ego John Lange delivers a fast-paced, odd, and occasionally uneven tale with Drug of Choice.

I think the biggest problem with the story is that its too short. A number of the sequences could have been expanded on to unnerve the reader and immerse them into the mystery of what is really going on.

Roger Clark is a hard-working doctor. But he’s just been set up by a pharmaceutical company to play a role in their company’s plans. He’s confronted with a couple of strange cases, and its all part of a larger setup.

There’s a new island resort that everyone is talking about (a very familiar Crichton trope, and one of the elements that isn’t explored as well as it could have been here), San Cristobel. This resort is hidden in the Caribbean and it lets them enjoy anything they want. Anything.

Clark finds himself there with a famous actress, but it’s all a ploy for something darker. A company known as Advance is working on perfecting not only its stable of high grade drugs, but also other morally questionable scientific endeavors.

The story moves fast, which is fine, but it also could have been filled out and expanded a little more. Things happen very quickly, and Clark finds the truth of the resort really quickly. Yes, they are letting him discover what is going on, but it could have been layered and taken some more time with it.

The story just rockets along, and Clark, while able to figure things out, seems to be pinballing from one reveal to the next. That’s not to say I didn’t like it. There’s a lot of curious ideas here, as well as some things that will become familiar territory for Crichton stories, but it just races to be over too quickly.

There are some nice sequences, like when Clark is drugged and the narrative just gets bizarre. The process of Clark’s dosing, and the reveals of what is going on at the resort, and elsewhere. Man, there could have been so much more to this book, but it just races too quickly and isn’t as strong as it could have been.

I will say this; much like Stephen King, every time I dig into a Crichton book, I remember how much I love his writing and his stories. So I enjoyed it, but it could have been more. Let’s see what happens when I dig into the next book in Crichton’s bibliography, Dealing.