The Aging Code by Robert J. McCunney is an interesting mix of medical and political thriller with science-based suspense. It takes time to explore the science of aging, but one frightening question comes to mind: what happens when the very research that was intended to extend life is used as a weapon? As the story begins, readers are brought inside war-torn Mariupol, having been invaded by Russia three weeks earlier. Unfortunately for Oksana, a university student, she’d just witnessed her mother and sister dying as the building they were in was bombed. Her father, geneticist Dr. Bogdan Ivanov, manages to escape Moscow in protest of the government invading Ukraine. He enters Berlin on a fake passport and new name, Dr. Rolf Breitmann. Then heads to Charité Hospital, where he undergoes facial reconstruction to conceal who he really is. But he’s also thinking about how he can get his daughter out of Ukraine safely.