Mercy's Formula

A disgraced insurance investigator, Dominic Hale, takes a night-shift job at a crumbling nursing home in Port Gantry, Union States, only to discover a pattern of suspicious deaths among elderly residents. Each victim was part of a clinical trial for Exaltrex, a breakthrough painkiller manufactured by Ravenwood Pharmaceuticals. When Hale uncovers evidence that the company is deliberately overdosing patients to bury evidence of lethal side effects, he is drawn into a dark conspiracy that exploits every loophole in modern drug regulation. Teaming up with Marlene Draper, the company's enigmatic regional medical director, Hale believes he has found both an ally and a lover. But in the tradition of classic noir, betrayal comes from the closest quarters, and Hale soon finds himself framed, hunted, and forced to outwit a crime so elegantly constructed that no law enforcement agency has the framework to prosecute it. What appears to be a perfect, untouchable corporate murder is not genius—it is simply a machine built one step ahead of the regulatory mind.