The Calypso Directive

February 6, 2012
Ponderous prose (“His emotions were a raging river, dragging his mind toward a dangerous cascade”) undermines Andrews’s debut medical thriller. When Will Foster, initially identified only as Patient-65, breaks out of the facility where he’s been held in quarantine for five months, he’s surprised to find himself in Prague, not New York City. Will’s escape sets off alarms at the de rigueur evil drug manufacturing giant, Vyrogen Pharmaceuticals, which has been pursuing an immortality drug in a project named for Calypso, the nymph who offered Odysseus eternal life. Foster reaches out to an old flame, Julie Ponte, for help, and the pair spend the rest of the book dodging thugs in the pay of ruthless Vyrogen executive Meredith Morley. A mysterious Boston think tank is also thrown into the mix, but transcripts of its team members’ communications put the brakes on what little momentum the story line has. Agent: Kristin Lindstrom, Lindstrom Literary Management.

May 1, 2012
A biological thriller that mixes a series of "what-if" scenarios as it moves from New York to Europe in the blink of an eye. Will Foster, also known as Patient-65, escapes from the prison-like medical facility where he's held captive. Will mounts his escape after weeks of watching the staff and after a few stealthy midnight reconnaissance missions. However, his escape doesn't go as smoothly as he hoped, and soon the young American finds himself in Europe with no idea of exactly where he is or how he got there. After Will was laid off from his job with a New York City-based advertising company, he maxed out his credit cards and job hunted with no success. Based on a friend's advice, Will volunteered as a test subject for some pharmaceutical trials. Soon, he found himself strapped to a hospital bed in Prague and injected with substances he couldn't identify. When Will bolts, his first thought is to look up Julie Ponte, an old love living in Vienna. Although not quite convinced that Will's situation is as desperate as he claims, Julie comes to rescue Will and then takes him back to her apartment, but they soon discover they're being tracked. Meredith Morley, an executive with Vyrogen, the company conducting experiments on Will, launches a team of vicious German brothers who specialize in brutality to hunt for the escaped test subject. But Morley doesn't stop there; she also goes to an old boyfriend for help. He's the genius behind an ultra-high tech, under-the-radar think tank that specializes in doing the impossible. With both sets of trackers on their heels, Will and Julie reestablish their relationship while trying to stay alive and one step ahead of their pursuers. This is an intelligent but technical novel, one that occasionally includes too much scientific detail. The story works until the last third of the novel, when supposedly brilliant and capable people make some pretty basic mistakes that propel the cast of characters into an ending that does little but set up an obvious sequel.

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