Against Medical Advice
Arsheeya Mashaw and Ari Mashaw
Type: Beta project
Genre: Mystery, thriller
Word count: 80,000
Warnings: Swearing
When a disillusioned physician abandons his career to live off the grid, he finds refuge in an Oregon commune—until unexplained deaths force him to confront both a medical mystery and his own fractured past.
Once a respected rural physician, disillusioned Cyrus Darian abandons his career to live off the grid, carrying only his backpack, his instincts, and the medical skills he can’t quite leave behind. Haunted by a past he refuses to name, he drifts westward—until a harrowing backcountry rescue forces him to act. After saving a stranger’s life with nothing but a pocketknife and tubing, Cyrus is invited to a remote Oregon commune that seems, at first, like a quiet place to disappear.
But when a resident dies under strange medical circumstances—and then another—Cyrus begins to suspect something far more sinister than poor health or bad luck. As he digs deeper with the help of unlikely allies, he uncovers evidence of an agenda that reaches well beyond the commune’s garden fences—one that powerful outsiders will do anything to keep buried.
To stop the next death, Cyrus must rely on the very skills he abandoned—and confront the reason he ran in the first place.
Arsheeya started his medical career as a rural physician who practiced in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and is currently a practicing physician in Portland, Oregon. He has previously published short medical memoirs in both scientific journals and Hippocampus Magazine. Against Medical Advice was co-written with his son, Ari Mashaw, a high school student, artist and writer. This is their first novel.
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