Venom

A gripping tale of international corporate intrigue from the award-winning author of Bleedout . . .

EASTERN EUROPE . . . Thirty years after Chernobyl, nuclear fallout is still claiming victims.

ILLINOIS . . . Fresh out of prison, David Marion doesn’t expect a hit man at his door. But when one appears, their meeting is lethal—for the hit man. Who sent him? David has no idea. But warned that a powerful secret organization is after him, he is forced to disappear until he can strike back.

ALABAMA . . . Devastated by the death of her lover, physicist Helen Freyl escapes to her bee farm to care for a colony carrying a unique strain of venom. But when an unexpected job offer from a giant drug corporation arrives, it proves to be a much more intriguing diversion.

LONDON, ENGLAND . . . Helen’s new company is close to a cure for radiation poisoning, but the sudden death of a colleague is followed by another, and Helen begins to doubt the organization’s motives. When she realizes her own life is in danger, what can she do and who can she call on for help?

Venom brings David Marion and Helen Freyl together as they fight for their lives against a backdrop of industrial espionage, corporate greed, and human tragedy in an exhilarating and fast-paced follow-up to the bestselling Bleedout.

A gripping tale of international corporate intrigue from the award-winning author of Bleedout . . .

EASTERN EUROPE . . . Thirty years after Chernobyl, nuclear fallout is still claiming victims.

ILLINOIS . . . Fresh out of prison, David Marion doesn’t expect a hit man at his door. But when one appears, their meeting is lethal—for the hit man. Who sent him? David has no idea. But warned that a powerful secret organization is after him, he is forced to disappear until he can strike back.ALABAMA . . . Devastated by the death of her lover, physicist Helen Freyl escapes to her bee farm to care for a colony carrying a unique strain of venom. But when an unexpected job offer from a giant drug corporation arrives, it proves to be a much more intriguing diversion.LONDON, ENGLAND . . . Helen’s new company is close to a cure for radiation poisoning, but the sudden death of a colleague is followed by another, and Helen begins to doubt the organization’s motives. When she realizes her own life is in danger, what can she do and who can she call on for help?

Venom brings David Marion and Helen Freyl together as they fight for their lives against a backdrop of industrial espionage, corporate greed, and human tragedy in an exhilarating and fast-paced follow-up to the bestselling Bleedout.

Publishers Weekly

Brady fails to make the most of an intriguing premise in this sequel to 2005's Bleedout. Wealthy Helen Freyl of Springfield, Ill., owns a small farm in Caton, Ala., where a curious strain of honeybees produces an unusual honey with unheard of healing properties. Helen, along with her crusty, imperious grandmother, become enmeshed, to their delight, in a struggle between two pharmaceutical giants vying for the patent to the bees' venom. Things turn infinitely darker after the women discover that one of the companies is conducting deadly experiments on the unsuspecting inhabitants of a region in Belarus not far from the infamous Chernobyl disaster. When Helen realizes her life is in danger, she turns for help to ex-con David Marion, who seized a chance to make people believe he was dead by blowing up his Springfield house in the first chapter. Readers with a taste for a well-written story who don't mind a sedate pace will be satisfied, but those looking for thrills to match the opening scene may be disappointed. (Aug.)

Joan Brady was born in California and danced with New York City Ballet when she was in her twenties. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Columbia University, Brady now lives in England where she is an author of short stories; articles; reviews; a highly acclaimed autobiography, The Unmaking of a Dancer, and a novel, Theory of War, for which she became the first woman (and first American) to win the Whitbreak Book of the Year Award in 1993. She is also the author of the best-selling novel, The ÉmigrÉ, and Death Comes for Peter Pan, a fictionalized account of an American medical scandal, both published in the U.K. In 2001, she represented England at the Centenary of the Nobel Peace Prize. Brady published her first book with Simon & Schuster in 2005, titled Bleedout, in hardover and mass market paperback reprint.