It was a gloomy, rainy day when Ambika Mathur walked by the loading dock behind a research building a few years ago. Maybe it was the cloning and scientific fraud cases making headlines, or her love of mystery and suspense novels, but the thought occurred to the professor of pediatrics and dean of the Graduate School about how nefarious scientists could get away with terrible things if left unchecked.

A few years and 225-pages later, Mathur's medical mystery, Transplant, will be released on May 26 by Black Rose Writing.  An electronic version of the book will be available on June 9.  

"It was a fun process, but it's scary that it'll be published and out there for people to read the machinations of my imagination," said Mathur. "They say a book has a life of its own and it does. As I was writing it changed directions and evolved on its own."

Transplant's main character, Sheila Kumar, is a starry-eyed young woman from Mumbai that comes to the United States to do cancer research, just like Mathur, but she says that's where the autobiographical nature ends. She credits her husband, Deepak Kamat, a WSU professor of pediatrics, and twin children who are both medical students with providing critiques and helping to shape the final product.

Transplant is set at the fictitious Mount Carmel University in Michigan and Campus Martius and a Detroit Lion's game are among the settings. The story is a mystery that includes romance, suicide and scientific intrigue.

"The message of the book is that science needs oversight. We can't assume that everything is clean and ethical."

Writing is nothing new for Mathur. She published a series of seven children's books in 1997 based on stories she made up for her children. Professionally, she's published more than 120 journal and review articles and book chapters.

"Fortunately, writing has always come easy to me," said Mathur. "Writing is my sanity check, it clears my brain. Cooking and writing are my releases."