Fatal Memories
Vladimir Lange
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2005 Red Square Press
ISBN: 0976039818

Dr. Anne Powell's revolutionary brain scanner, MEG, is accomplishing in seconds what conventional psychotherapy could only hope to do in years.

The MEG, the culmination of Dr. Anne Powell’s brilliant career as a neuro-psychiatrist, could change the course of psychiatric treatment forever, if it doesn’t kill her first.

A clash with the FDA forces Anne to leave Boston & continue her research at the world-renowned Pavlov Institute in Moscow. There, a laboratory accident re-ignites a centuries-old conflict, & threatens to return a blood-thirsty dictator to power.

Anne soon realizes that the MEG is capable of far more than brain-scanning. She is forced to confront past & present, reality & memory, love & hate in the ultimate battle to save herself, and thwart a plot that could hurl a newly democratic Russia back to its totalitarian past.

All her life, beautiful Anne Powell has had recurring, vivid nightmares of burning buildings, a brutal husband, a handsome lover & a young bride called Anytchka. As an adult, every time she gets close to a man she loves, the paralyzing night visions attack, & she relinquishes all hope of love. So she chooses the cold & distant companionship of Jack Halden her financier, except lately, he's been wanting to change the nature of their relationship.

When Anne arrives in Moscow, everything changes. Even though she's known that her grand-uncle had come from Russia, she never realized how familiar all things Russian seemed to be.

With her assistant, Sasha, Anne sets about treating the Institute's seriously damaged neurological patients until an accident while a mysterious man is strapped into the MEG, gives a heavy dose to both she & Sasha as they try to subdue the deranged patient. Now the nightmares start coming even during the day, seemingly at random. Now Sasha starts behaving strangely.

Meanwhile, Anne meets the handsome DNA researcher Volodya, who seems to charm every women in Russia. Slowly his charisma breaks through her armor, even as the flashbacks come faster & more vividly.

Will past & present force Anne into more danger, or will it forge a new life of love & understanding?

Fatal Memories is a fast-paced medical thriller about how past lives can affect present day relationships, especially when it is steeped in Russia's bloody & passionate past.

A lively evening's romantic adventure that takes you into modern Russia, & the exploration of how the past is still with us.
(03/13/05)

Rebecca