Customer Reviews

KILLER DRUG

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Killer Drug is a fast-paced thriller about a drug company that kills its enemies - and employees.

Alex McGraw, whistleblower and former Managing Director of BioPharma Germany, is trying to move on with his life after having uncovered world-wide corporate tax [...]. He finally receives a job offer from Xenal. The omnipotent security department, however, spies on company employees using both advanced technology and personal surveillance and already knows about Alex's history.

Alex's first assignment is to go to the Ritz-Carlton in Cancun, Mexico, to manage a lavish meeting with hundreds of doctors. Alex meets Xenal employee Jennifer Klum at the reception and falls for her. She confides in Alex who follows her to her room. Later, Jennifer is abducted by Zapatista rebels and Alex spends a short time in custody as a suspect in her disappearance.

But nothing in this book is what it originally appears to be and soon a Xenal-funded death squad is hunting Jennifer in Mexico's jungles. Meanwhile Jennifer finds herself prepared for a ritual sacrifice on a Mayan pyramid.

Alex gets a demonstration of the secret chemical weapons program jointly managed by Xenal and the CIA. Then Xenal's CEO Ms. Metcalf discovers that the security chief isn't loyal to her and implements a plan to oust him. She secretly negotiates a deal with another predatory corporation, to make a friendly takeover bid for Xenal.

In the middle of all this Alex decides to expose this powerful corporation. And now the real action starts involving choppers, corporate jets, soldiers of fortune, and Convulsor, the drug developed by Xenal.

As the novel's editor and dedicatee, I am no doubt too biased to review fairly this new work by Peter Rost. But like any true book lover, I can't keep quiet when I read something that sticks with me like KILLER DRUG has.

For readers who love escapist thrillers as I do, this novel delivers a fluid, fast-paced ride that outdoes virtually all its "financial thriller" competition. This is remarkable, given that Peter Rost, a native of Sweden, speaks and writes English as a second language. Most born-and-bred Americans who tried their hand at fiction wouldn't come close to matching Rost's dialogue or prose.

But what makes the novel truly exceptional is that -- like most great fiction -- it's rooted in real-life experience. Like his novel's protagonist, Peter Rost blew the whistle at a major pharmaceutical company (actually, at two of them). Without that experience, no author could do what Rost does -- make his own hero's whistleblowing journey a visceral and emotionally charged journey where the stakes are unimaginably high.

-- Ed Stackler

I read Dr. Rost's first book "The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman," and hoped "Killer Drug" would be as exciting as that one.

Truth is, I couldn't put this book down for almost the entire weekend. Killer Drug is an incredibly action-oriented corporate thriller, with virtually now slow passages.

Rost writes like a combination between Joseph Finder and John Grisham; high tempo, in a corporate setting, with lots of legal twists.

But Rost doesn't keep the action pent up inside some office walls. He moves the chase to ancient Mayan hunting grounds where human sacrifices are still conducted in secret, and the bad guys use hi-tech weapons and satellite-guided death squads to bring the suspense to a boiling point.

Much of the story, however, is actually very realistic, and makes you wonder what Rost really knows about the drug industry. The fact that those "family jewels" CIA documents really exist makes this book outright scary.

In short, the suspense starts on the first page and doesn't go away until you reach the last line.

I've been too lazy to do book reviews in the past, but this one really deserved a comment.

As a reader who enjoyed Rost's first book ("Whistleblower") as well being as a supporter of his courage within the pharmaceutical industry, I ordered this book to get a peak at his first attempt at fiction. The first chapter had decent potential, but then the introduction of Mexican bandits, the Zapatistas, took this tale directly into the realm of "the silly". I agree with a former reviewer that Rost's dialogue is notably decent, particularly given that English is not his first language. But, there is a reason this book was self-published. It just wouldn't have passed muster. Nevertheless, Rost should continue to work on his craft. I think he's probably an individual whose innate gutsiness will continue to take him into new worlds. Corporate whistleblower, tell-it-like-it-is blogger, fiction writer....what's next? We'll stay tuned.

This book is Peter Rost's first attempt at a novel, and all, it's not too bad.

I won't give the plot away, but in brief, there are shenanigans going in the top echelons of a drug company, and the novel's protagonist, Alex McGraw, ends up finding out the shady stuff and blows the whistle. People start disappearing. Human chess pieces move and counter-move, and some end up out of play. Oh, and one lady gets painted blue.

In many ways, it was a pretty decent read - some good thriller action, a few gory sequences, ruthless characters getting payback in kind, etc. Some good page-turning action.

I read a fair number of thrillers, and enjoy the craft of great writing, so there are clearly aspects of Killer Drug that reveal it as a rookie effort. Many of the characters are 2-dimensional; the good and bad folks are pretty much black and white with little nuance. Character development isn't full-flowered; plot elements are a bit thin, and often far-fetched. Even a really bad pharma company wouldn't be pulling the stunts attempted by those at Xenal Pharmaceuticals in this tale. Stylistically, I found myself sensing that the author was trying hard to craft his words - at times, the writing just felt a bit forced.

Beside seeing the good guys victorious in the end, and some bad dudes go down hard, you do get a bit of an education on some of the legal aspects of whistleblowing. The main protagonist and his lawyer/fiancee do get into discussions that spotlight how that area of the law works. Just in case you need it in the future...

There were also too many punctuation, spelling, and layout errors, which is quite bothersome - those in charge of book production should never allow that level of imperfection in a final product.

All in all - a nice summer time-killer. You won't get college credit for this, but one thing you'll take away is this - if someone offers you anything with "Convulsor" as an ingredient, probably you should opt to take a pass.