The Pharmacist: The most gripping and unforgettable debut

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Atalla's speculative literary thriller debut draws you in with its mounting sense of tension, disquiet and desperation Newsweek reports that she pled guilty to dispensing controlled substances in 2009, after accepting a plea deal due to her accident. "I plead guilty to one count even though I knew that I had not done what they stated I done," Cleggett says, and the film clarifies that she never went to jail, although she has promised to never open another clinic again. Investigators also ended up arresting 17 other people who allegedly were distributing drugs prescribed by Cleggett to buyers in Louisiana. The show is blessed with several compelling talking heads apart from Schneider himself, not least a reformed big-pharma drugs rep who announces yet another abrupt shift in the plot by dramatically barking, more than halfway through the series: “That wasn’t the end! That was … the beginning!”

The Pharmacist is attractively written and the moral disintegration of the inhabitants due to their unwilling isolation and their not knowing how the outside is doing, is well developed. Wolfe is an interesting person to follow. Nevertheless, the book is not completely satisfying. There are a lot of questions raised (about what happened before, about the bunker, about the leader, about why so many unqualified people were selected to join) and you expect some answers. But as the book progresses, the story starts spinning in circles and doesn’t evolve. There are almost no answers given and the abrupt ending is naive and rushed. It feels like a sequel is needed, but the ending suggests this is not the plan. I liked the general idea of the book, the premises, the pace, the atmosphere that was conveyed, but was disappointed in the final quarter in which I expected answers and an original outcome, which didn’t happen. It all begins when Schneider's son is murdered in the late 1990s while attempting to secure drugs. As the police embark on a long and complicated investigation, Schneider starts to notice how many prescriptions for opioids are being abused in his town, which eventually leads to a takedown of "big pharma." The murder that started it allAs for style, the book is written entirely from Wolfe's point of view, and totally without speech marks (similar to Ling Ma's "Severance"). It's a modern and perhaps brave choice, but takes a bit of getting used to. I am personally not keen because it makes the characters seem dispassionate and detached, and a lot of the 'bigger picture' is missing.

I don't feel good about [the murder]," Hall said in the documentary, revealing that he agreed to a plea deal when charged with manslaughter in 2000. "I was just trying to get the heat off me. I just made up a story… I thought I had everything figured out. I was dealing drugs, and I thought I was a big boy." This is because Wolfe didn't have any obvious goals - she wasn't striving for anything, didn't desperately want anything. While it matches the lethargy of the world inside the bunker, it made it hard to root for her as there was nothing to root for, nothing to hope she got in the end. Plus it bottomed out the momentum because I didn't have anything to measure success by. I didn't know if events were getting her further or closer to goals. I think that underpins all my writing — from short stories to screenwriting and the novel.” Dystopian thriller An unflinching portrayal of what we might all be capable of, Atalla's stunning debut is essential reading for our times It was probably the first time I wondered if I could write speculative fiction. You get to ask big societal questions that are harder to ask in a world that already exists.”

A woman’s mind begins to spiral as she tries to sort out truth, lies, and mysteries about her family in a novel by the bestselling author of Abduction. Alice Roberts and retired husband Tom had just moved into their retirement home, moving closer to be near their daughter, Rachel and granddaughter, Millie.

There are shades of George Orwell in this stunning writing debut, but Rachelle Atalla’s voice is highly original. And wholly her own. Sitting somewhere on the spectrum between Paul Auster's heart-rending In the Country of Last Things and Bong Joon-ho's pulse-thumping film Snowpiercer, The Pharmacist is a slow-burn nightmare about how ordinary human decency gets eroded - and also how it perseveres Working as a locum, Rachelle found herself travelling around the central belt to different community pharmacies. Her writing began as a hobby and developed into a full-blown career. She says: “I qualified as a pharmacist in 2008 and started locuming. There’s a lot of responsibility with the job and I found it quite anxiety-inducing because I was worried I might make mistakes.Sarah Wolfe is one of two pharmacists charged with dispensing medicines to the universally depressed survivors living a rigidly controlled life underground while they wait for the world to recover from an unexplained apocalypse. She’s unsure why she was chosen to survive, and feels unresolved guilt about leaving her family behind. When the bunker’s leader summons her to his quarters and offers the temptations of real food in exchange for information about her patients, she is powerless to refuse, but his escalating demands force her to question just how much she’ll compromise to survive. The Pharmacist is unnervingly claustrophobic and chillingly atmospheric. A post-apocalyptic tale with a slight difference. Basic information has been given that there has been a war, and people have had to shelter from nuclear fallout. But that, technically, was all the information that was given, and it needed a lot of imagination to fill in the gaps. decide each time you're given a prescription where to collect it – you'll be given a paper copy with a barcode to take to any pharmacy in England, or the pharmacy can find your prescription using your NHS number

The Pharmacist follows Wolfe, one of the pharmacists in a bunker as her dull life administering meds for her fellow residents is disrupted by a request from their mysterious Leader. This horrendously claustrophobic, utterly absorbing debut. The fiercely controlled narrative beautifully translates the horrendous grip of dismal routines and tiny, stolen pleasures’ DAILY MAIL They wear boiler-suits and sand shoes and live cheek-by-jowl in dormitories. Devoid of the comforts of their old lives, hope is hard.As her relationship with this leader evolves, Wolfe must navigate her volatile, underground home and decide what price she is willing to pay to stay alive. A pharmacist herself Not my usual genre but im grateful I was chosen to receive a early read as I found Rachelle Atallas penmanship completely captivating.