Title: What’s Next?
Author: Bobby Bell
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 978-1-5144-2325-7
Pages: 180
Genre: Fiction
Reviewed by: Tara Mcnabb
Pacific Book Review
A sinister kidnapping plot on an Indian reservation sets the backdrop for a harrowing tale of corruption and greed.
Although What’s Next? is a fictional story, author Bobby Bell makes it clear that the events are not far from the truth. The world of organ transplants is big business; millions of dollars are exchanged in the sale and transport of human organs. While this field of medicine is often credited with saving lives, there is also a darker side to the story only few get to see. Ask any conspiracy theorist, and they won’t hesitate to tell you the many conspiracies surrounding human trafficking and the harvesting of human organs for profit. But just how far does this rabbit hole go? According to Bell, very far indeed.
Not content to focus just on organ transplants alone, Bell takes the idea to new territory on an Indian reservation. The story has much more impact because the victims are already displaced, exiled and forgotten by society at large. Which is why, more often than not, Native American women and children are often the first to be targeted by criminals. With hardly any legal system or protection to rely on, they are voiceless, vulnerable and unheard.
The book does not shy away from disturbing images or events; when a little girl is kidnapped off the reservation, a ripple of fear and paranoia spreads like wildfire through the small community. It is only further in that we begin to realize the connection between her disappearance and a mysterious medical facility whose true intentions are unknown. When the breakthrough does finally come, it is traumatic and chilling. Families are torn apart, mothers and their children separated. It is revealed the sinister cold and calculating medical personnel and scientists who will stop at nothing to satisfy their greed. Captives and victims living like animals, clustered together in a steel building where no one can hear them. Does evil of this magnitude really exist? Unfortunately, yes.
Bell seems to be intent on sounding a warning to the public at large through his book, and the sense of activism is not completely absent. By choosing to combine three different ideas; the business of organ transplants, human trafficking, and the reality of life on an Indian reservation, Bell has successfully created something new. The best activism often arises from taking familiar concepts and combining them in a way that gets people to notice something different, something that was hidden just below the surface all along. What’s Next? manages to do just that.
