On a cold, rainy Saturday night in Manhattan, now an early Sunday morning in January, the $2,000 a night suite at the Peninsula Hotel looked like a room whose occupants had gotten more than their money’s worth.
Remnants of gourmet meals, short-charred cigars and cigarette butts shared a well-used bar. Ornate Sake cups were scattered throughout the room, large windows looked out over Midtown, and it was as close to being a city at sleep as it could ever be.
The meeting was finally ending, business concluded. The participants (most, but not all, middle-aged men) hoped their host had arranged post-meeting entertainment “party girls,” who were routinely scheduled to provide needed relief, but they were severely disappointed. Not that the host didn’t enjoy the company of young women. He just didn’t want to attract any unnecessary attention to his business group.
At last, the men were able to gather their belongings, say their goodbyes, put on their heavy overcoats and leave.
The business operations called for the participants to stay at four or five different hotels around Midtown.
As they departed, some were picked up by limos, others by taxis and a few walked. Large sheets of icy rain continued blowing across the almost empty streets. The wind and rain had slacked, but an umbrella was still required.
One guest had been living in France with his wife and children for nearly five years. While there he acquired a taste for all things French, especially young French women.
The Pharm House: A Harding Family Story Description:
The Pharm House is a foreboding and darkly suspenseful medical thriller by Bill Powers set in the hidden underworld of the global pharmaceutical business. Even though The Pharm House is set in a pharmaceutical company, it is really a story about family.
It’s about Nicholas Harding, a young scientist/executive at Marshall Pharmaceutical. Nicholas is a regular guy – a single Dad trying to raise a precocious 11-year-old daughter while clawing his way up that ever so slippery middle management ladder. But unknown to Nicholas, there are dark forces inside Marshall Pharmaceutical and he is about to be drawn into their plans and finds himself fighting for his career, his family and perhaps even his life.
In this suspenseful thriller, Bill investigates the underworld of the international pharmaceutical industry, which includes unscrupulous activities at the hands of corporate lieges traversing the planet and seducing young women while soliciting, marketing, manufacturing and selling legalized addiction under the guise of medicinal purpose. The scenes are seamy and torrid as well as realistic and matter of fact.
Do you ever wonder how drugs get in those little brown bottles? Read The Pharm House and you may give it a second thought.
I just bought this book.