cover image The Taxol Thief: The Heist That Killed Millions of Breast Cancer Victims

The Taxol Thief: The Heist That Killed Millions of Breast Cancer Victims

Ceylon Barclay. Bold Venture, $16.95 trade paper (452p) ISBN 978-1-539454-44-1

Barclay uneven first thriller novel, set mainly in the early 1990s, draws on his experience as the president of international marketing for a pharmaceutical company that produced the chemotherapy medication Taxol. The narrator, who manages a McDonald’s in Winter Park, Fla., describes himself as “your humble scribe, who having been christened twenty-two years ago Igor Vladimirovich Fetisov, was adopted at seven and rechristened Troy V. Locke.” Troy’s prolixity is a regular feature of a plot line that centers on his desperate search for a treatment for his beloved wife, Anastasia, who has been diagnosed with breast cancer. To add to the melodrama, Troy learns that Anastasia is pregnant. Hope for a cure rests with Taxol, but as the FDA has not yet approved the medicine for sale in the U.S., he must go to extreme lengths to smuggle some into the country. Digressions, such as Troy’s efforts to introduce Mexican fast food to Russia and his ruminations on extraterrestrial life, somewhat undercut the tension about Anastasia’s fate. (Feb.)

This review has been corrected; a previous version incorrectly listed the author's name.