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Poison Pill: A Novel
Author:
Kaplan, Glenn
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Class:
Fiction
Age: Adult
Language: English
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LC: PS3561.A
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ISBN-13: 9780765336903
LCCN: 2013024042
Imprint: Forge
Publisher: Tor Books
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Pub Date: 10/22/2013
Availability: Out of Print Confirmed
List: $25.99
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Hardcover
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Physical Description:
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348 pages ; 25 cm
H 9.41",
W 6.44",
D 1.24",
1.17 lbs.
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LC Series:
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Brodart Sources:
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Bibliographies:
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Awards:
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Starred Reviews:
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TIPS Subjects:
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Suspense/Thriller
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BISAC Subjects: |
FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense
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LC Subjects:
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Consolidation and merger of corporations, Fiction
Drugs, Research, Fiction
FICTION / Thrillers
Investments, Fiction
Pharmaceutical industry, Fiction
Stock exchanges and current events, Fiction
Suspense fiction
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SEARS Subjects: |
Adventure fiction
Corporate mergers and acquisitions, Fiction
Current events, Fiction
Drugs, Research, Fiction
Investments, Fiction
Pharmaceutical industry, Fiction
Stock exchanges, Fiction
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| Annotations |
| Publisher Annotations | 08/21/2013 |
| Caught in a war that pits greed and ambition against conscience and love, Emma Conway faces the fight of her life-to save her family, her company, and everything she treasures. Emma is finally living the dream-a happy second marriage and a great career. She has built Percival & Baxter's painkiller, Acordinol, into a huge success. But her dream becomes a nightmare when a Wall Street raider threatens a hostile takeover. Worse, the raider is no ordinary cutthroat but her ex-husband Josh Katz, father of their teenage son. P&B's Poison Pill defense implodes when a mysteriously tainted batch of Acordinol starts killing people, including P&B's CEO. Emma is put in charge as P&B's stock plummets. Her ex's game traps her in a web of secrets locked within secrets. A shadowy Russian oligarch behind Josh is lusting after the holy grail of drugs, the first Viagra for women. And a clandestine romance between Emma's son and the oligarch's estranged daughter puts them in the crosshairs of their parents' mortal combat. |
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| Journal Reviews |
| Kirkus Reviews | 09/15/2013 |
| Kaplan (Evil, Inc., 2007, etc.) spins another tale of amoral ambition among the possessors of Gulfstreams, private estates and offshore bank accounts. In the high-stakes sport where people are game pieces and dollars are on the scoreboard, the players are Percival & Baxter, a major pharmaceutical manufacturer; Anglia Partners, a capital investment firm; and Viktor Volkov, a billionaire Russian oligarch. P&B's rumored to have developed chemistry that could result in the "first female orgasm pill." Residing in London, the wily Volkov, attempting to shift crime-earned billions into legitimate enterprises, intends to drive P&B's stock to the bottom and buy controlling interest. Enter Anglia, Josh Katz's troubled investment firm, in need of a cash infusion. Anglia will front for Volkov, a decision complicated by the fact that Josh's former wife, Emma Conway, is a high-ranking P&B executive. Mentioning all the right addresses, the right schools and the right brand names, Kaplan moves the setting from London to Philadelphia to Connecticut. Volkov sparks P&B's collapse by having his agents add cyanide to a batch of Acordinol. The first poisoned pill kills P&B's CEO and then six innocents. Amid panic, corporate leadership falls to Conway. There's a minor plot hole, but Kaplan does a decent job of ratcheting tension as the leveraged buyout attempt unfolds, exacerbated by personal tension between Conway and Katz. In a parallel thread, Peter Katz, the pair's teenage son, and Tanya Volkov, the Russian's just-out-of-college daughter, meet at Kroesus Kids, a luxury camp for billionaire progeny. The youngsters stumble over their own emotional immaturities and then become part of the problem--and part of the solution. Other minor characters, including Conway's always-wise-counsel mother, Katz's cut-any-corner PR guy and Volkov's amoral henchmen, run to the formulaic. A good-enough drama of the clash between greed and good guys, albeit saddled with a too-neat conclusion. 352pg. KIRKUS MEDIA LLC, c2013. |
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| Publishers Weekly | 08/26/2013 |
| Early in this melodramatic financial thriller from bestseller Kaplan (Evil, Inc.), Emma Conway, the CEO of a large pharmaceutical firm, Percival & Baxter, quarrels with her 16-year-old son, Peter, at home in Wynnewood, Pa. Peter cares only for money, just like his father and Emma's ex, Josh Katz, who lives in a grand house in Greenwich, Conn., and is about to attempt a hostile takeover of P&B. Josh, a self-made businessman who suffered heavy losses in the 2008 crash, has borrowed $500 million from Russian billionaire Viktor Volkov, who's hot on the trail of a female version of Viagra. Meanwhile, Viktor's 21-year-old daughter, Tanya, wants Peter to be the sperm donor for the baby she craves. Hurtling along from one cliched crisis to another, this shallow thriller peppers the proceedings with big-name brands, tired dirty tricks, overheated adolescent sex, and mawkish resolutions to tidy up the various messes Kaplan inflicts on poor Emma and the rest of his stock characters. Agent: Al Zuckerman, Writers House. (Oct.). 352p. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2013. |
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