“Boomerang” by Robert Bailey

“[Do] you really believe that the US government has deliberately covered up the cure for cancer?”

This question, asked by Eli James, the protagonist in Robert Bailey’s newest political thriller, The Boomerang (Thomas and Mercer May 2025), reflects the central conflict in a riveting, suspenseful, and gloriously bold novel.

The author has faced cancer within his immediate family, and asks in his acknowledgment, “What would you do to save the ones you love the most?”

The intersection of these two questions is what makes The Boomerang an edge-of-your-chair, can’t-put-it-down, action packed page-turner—but more than the suspense, the morality questions make this a deep and important book. It is also a deeply cynical book.

Bailey has found both commercial and critical success with his ten prior legal thrillers. Now he proves he can jump into the edgy world of political thrillers with the best of them. The Boomerang is intense and complicated, but Bailey knows exactly how to layer in the pieces to form an intricate, gripping and heartfelt story. Such is his gift that Bailey makes what might seem implausible in the abstract seem not only possible but probable in the execution of the story.

The basic plot is ambitious. Eli James and his childhood friend Lionel Cantrell at first look to be standard-issue good-old-frat-boy types from small town Alabama. But these are two men with searing ambitions. Eli is the brains, the con-man, the great-in-a-crisis manipulator, and the push behind making Lionel the president of the United States against impressive odds. In turn, Lionel makes Eli his Chief of Staff. How Lionel came to be elected would make a good novel in and of itself, but Bailey only uses that tale as background, albeit fascinating, revealing background.

Unknown to the public, Lionel has terminal colon cancer. When a small group of government officials, led by the sanctimonious and patriotic General Randolph, find out, they decide to give Lionel the boomerang, the secret code name for a medicine that will actually cure cancer. The price for this drug: Lionel must tell no one. Ever. No matter what.

Randolph and his group fervently believe that the economics involved in presenting a cure for cancer would ruin the USA’s economy and therefore destroy the nation. They decide to hide the existence of the cure because “billions upon billions of dollars are wrapped up in the oncology market” and that money and all the associated jobs in the oncology market would be lost if a cure is found. Releasing the cure would result in “a logistical nightmare and would destroy this country, if not the world, as we know it,” in Randolph’s opinion. Their motivation propels them toward a no-holds-barred approach to keeping the cure a secret. Already, those involved in the early days of the drug are dead or have disappeared.

Eli, the complicated central character, knows Lionel has cancer. No one else outside of Lionel’s medical providers and Randolph’s government group do. It is not long into the story that Eli’s teenage daughter complains of a backache. The moment she mentions this, readers will tense, knowing what is coming. Bella, the 17-year-old daughter, is soon diagnosed with terminal, inoperable lung cancer.

Eli catches hints of an undisclosed cure for cancer the government and Big Pharm are keeping top secret for economic reasons—sheer greed on the part of Big Pharm. Dale, Eli’s wife and a brilliant trial attorney, and Eli soon begin their quest to find this drug. Naturally their increasingly desperate search leads them across the country and results in several murders, much mayhem, some head-banging moral dilemmas, and conflicts and dangers so deep and hard as to seem unsolvable.

This is not just a great, riveting, well plotted action-packed read. It is an important book that raises many significant questions about the health care system, the government, and greed. Read it for the fast pace and excitement but do please also think about the lessons within its well-researched pages.

Robert Bailey

Bailey is a Wall Street Journal best-selling author and a trial attorney who lives in Huntsville, Alabama, with his wife and three children. He is the author of ten legal thrillers.