Effie Perrine

When I first started researching the Kennedy assassination I stumbled upon the story of Judyth Vary Baker, which inadvertently led me to discover the book “Dr. Mary’s Monkey” because Judyth’s story is detailed in the book.

Ominous and scary were words that rolled through my mind just looking at the cover art of the book on the Web with pictures of lab monkeys, Oswald and a newspaper clipping regarding Mary Sherman’s death all in a veil of primordial green coloring and fiery titles.

I finally found the book under “Medicine History” at Barnes n Noble in New York City.  I felt like I had stumbled across something clandestine, hidden and taboo.

Fortunately, Ed Haslam, author of  “Dr. Mary’s Monkey” uses personal style to disarm this initial paranoia one gets from holding the book for the first time. Even his picture on the back cover of the book is weirdly comforting against the specter of the book cover.

His lifetime journey, which is detailed in the book, to find out what happened to Dr. Mary Sherman, begins with stories about his childhood fascination with the topic.

The thread that held the book together for me was Ed Haslam. You can’t help but love a kid who incurs the derision of his teacher when disclosing top governmental secrets to his classmates.

What drives Ed Haslam through his harrowing and death-defying lifetime journey, which eventually brings him to the very corridors of the truth behind the Kennedy assassination and possibly the very origins of the AIDS epidemic?

How many doors through these corridors is Ed Haslam willing to go? Apparently Ed Haslam is a truth seeker in every sense of the term.

When I first found “Dr. Mary’s Monkey” in medical history at the bookstore I thought it strangely placed. Now, I realize because it crosses the divide of mere intrigue to ask the hardest ethical questions regarding that which should indeed no longer be clandestine, hidden and taboo, it seems to be in the appropriate place.

In studying Mary Sherman’s death, probably classified a national security homicide, Ed Haslam’s investigative lens becomes the kaleidoscopic and transparent lens for some of the 20th centuries’ greatest crimes and mysteries.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at 7:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.