The Pawn of Pharma

By: Evan Jacobs

Narrated by: Sarah Sampino

Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's Summary

The Pawn of Pharma is a story about corporate greed, business ethics, family loyalty, a search for purpose, and the excessiveness of the American pharmaceutical industry.

Samantha Harmon, a recently hired sales representative for a multinational drug company, struggles to succeed in the extremely competitive American pharmaceutical industry. Living in the shadows of her widowed father, a high-level executive with the organization, she attempts to develop a career while caught up in a business environment where the players do not always have the public's best interest in mind.

Dr. Goldfarb, a prominent physician, speaker, and promoter for the corporation, creates a web of industry professionals he manipulates in order to gain from the loosely regulated business. Samantha accidentally learns of one of his murderous schemes. Her knowledge threatens to bring down Dr. Goldfarb, ending his profiteering. Consequently, the young woman's life is threatened by those who wish to silence her.

©2005 Evan Jacobs (P)2019 Evan Jacobs

Download it and strap on that seatbelt - it’s a thriller!!

As a diabetic, I’m in doctor’s offices more often than most and in the waiting rooms, there always seems to be pharmaceutical reps who skip the line. So when I saw the title & cover of this book, I thought I’d check it out and I’m so happy I did.

Now in general, I don’t listen to fictional books but I was scheduled to be on the road for work and wanted something light and entertaining to listen to. What I got was 8 hours of thrilling entertainment that left me wanting more each time I had to stop / start the book. I found the story to be unpredictable which kept my interest in what was going to happen next.

The characters, and there are many, were well developed with interesting backstories. I think this book is going to be on the big screen at some point... It sounds and unfolds like a movie and is relative to our current money hungry world. You have the good, the bad and the Mrs. Peters in this thriller.

Download it and strap on that seatbelt. You are going to be on a crazy and thrilling ride! Highly recommended. *****

Decent plot but unrealistic characters

The plot of this book is decent, but fueled by characters that seem to be fake caricatures rather than anyone I could envision as a real person. You have the good doctor, some bad doctors, a workaholic boss, an incompetent boss, and a few characters that are supposed to seem more “average” everyday people I guess. However, the relationships between the characters seem implausible at best, both in personal matters and in business matters. Many of the characters are completely evil and unlikeable, with only a few characters that are remotely relatable, which drew me out of the story.

Despite the flaws in the characters, the plot itself kept me intrigued. It was almost like hate-listening, I was so eager to see some of the characters pay for their actions and what happened to the companies discussed that I kept coming back.

The audio quality is good and the narrator does a great job attempting to bring life to some of the flat characters. However, especially in the first couple chapters where many doctors are introduced, it feels like many characters are given similar voices/accents and you only see the narrators true range of voices/accents with some of the characters introduced later in the story.

I was given a free review copy of this audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Most entertaining and exciting pharma thriller!

I loved this book and just couldn’t stop listening. In the beginning, I was really entertained learning about some pharma industry details that I was not aware of, and Jacobs likes to play devil's advocate with some of this information that makes you wonder which side are you on. Then, the story made an unexpected switch that hooked me till the end waiting for justice to take place! Overall, the story has a balanced pace and rhythm that led me to enjoy every bit.

DNF

DNF @ 20%

I went into this book expecting nonfiction, but that's not what this was. That's on me for not reading the blurb properly (again). But when I realised this was fiction, the book actually got worse. You can "get away" with certain things when writing non-fictions, amassing one fact or event after the other, but when it's fiction you need details, some flourish, feelings. You want more than the bare minimum, and we didn’t get that here. Uninspired is the word that comes to mind when thinking about this story.

As far as the narration goes, I was a big fan. I loved Sarah Sampino’s voice and pacing. She was dedicated to her work and in my mind the best thing about this book. Sadly not enough to make me want to finish it though, but I’m definitely keeping an eye out her other narrations.

A copy of this book was gifted to me.

Wait for it...

As the story unfolds, each detail mentioned is woven in as an essential piece to the plot. I love the writer’s attention to detail and the slow build to a dramatic and gripping finish. It leaves me wanting more.

Interesting

I found The Pawn of Pharma an eye-opening and interesting story, illuminating some things about the pharmaceutical business and medical industry that I would rather not know or would be happy to ignore. With that said, this story is spellbinding.
Evan Jacobs wrote characters that are well developed with believable dialog. The attention to detail that Jacobs writes, brings you into the story.
Sarah Sampino's narration draws you in. I did find her rendition of the bratty child spot on, but her voice for the French beau not so much.

"I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review."

Intriguing Storyline

If you enjoyed the Robin Cook genre of deceit and corruption in the medical arena, or the crime and unscrupulousness legal thrillers of John Grisham, then you will definitely like Pawn of a Pharma. Characters are interesting and well developed. At times you may feel like it is losing momentum, but hang in there. Once it does, it is a page turner!

Amazing Thriller!

This story may seem to start up a bit slow, but don't be fooled. Once the action starts, well, there is no stopping.
The story is amazing and depicts very well the inner workings of the phama industry and marketing. It's scary, because most of it can actually be true. The best part is when one of the characters tries to justify the kind of immoral behavior depicted, as a good thing. There is a bit of love-hate for almost all the characters, even the main one, and that made me like the book even more.
I can totally see this story going up on the big screen or small screen (or both). It was just that good to me.
PS: at one point one character tries to pin the blame on the common folk that get eluded by phama marketing campaigns and demands for specific products ignoring medical advice. Though that may be right sometimes. I do know that phama companies in US have big enough lobbies to push for bills that take freedom of choice from people. For example: children with cancer have to go with quimio treatments even against their parents wishes (and even when doctors agree it's not working), or "normal" values for analises get changed so that people are forced to go under pill treatment earlier for all kinds of problems. There are a lot of documentaries out there about all of this and more. I just wanted to leave that though as it was not apart of the story.

Not one bit thrilling

I got "Pawn of Pharma" because it had high ratings from other readers. I can't figure out how anyone could have listened to this boring thing. I'd return it but I've had to interact with audible so much lately because of technical problems and I've already returned 2 books that were equally horrible.. Sigh.

S fresh angle on the subject...

As always, I have to state that this book was given to me for free in exchange for a review.
I always like to state that this does not impact my review or my opinion of the book. My reviews are honest and my own opinion of the story, performance, and overall thoughts on the book.

In addition to being a fresh angle on the subject, the story itself is exquisitely crafted. It will have you pondering the backstabbing that goes on at your workplace with a much more aloof perspective. You might even borrow some of the manipulative techniques for your own devilish agenda. In that sense, it is like a handbook for evil!

Great storyline

I Enjoyed this audio book very much
Hopefully they will be more audio books
Must read on your list

Interesting!

This was a very interesting and thought provoking book on the corruption and greed of the pharmaceutical industry. I'm not sure how much truth there is to this book although it sounds very believable to me, but, either way, I really enjoyed it and would highly recommend it. Sarah Sampino did a great job with all the different voices and emotions and really brought this story to life. I received this audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this unbiased review.

A big system that feeds itself.

A Pawn of Pharma is an exposure of the outrageous promotional costs of medically prescribed drugs in the U.S.A. as seen through the eyes of a naive little rich girl trying to make a name for herself as a drugs rep. In New Jersey.
The daughter of one of the chief executives in a major drugs company, Samantha, is employed in that company to promote a brand of blood pressure medication, made by them, to doctors who would then prescribe it for their patients, irrespective of whether it was the most suitable solution. The vigorous wooing of the doctors, and the generous hospitality hand outs, not only drove up the cost of the drugs to patients but also help conceal other problems as Samantha inadvertently discovered.

Not an original concept and overly simplistic, this is nevertheless a topic in need of exploration and does raise some useful thinking points. Characterisation is supeficial, unfortunately, as so much depends on the central protagonist, Samantha, a rather silly young woman whose understanding of life seems to have been totally obscured by daddy's money. The youthful sounding voice of narrator, Sarah Sampino, reinforced this idea also, though her reading is clear and well modulated with individual, if inapropriate, voicing given to each character. A good attempt but her male protagonists never began to feel other than female.

An important topic, an easy read, but overall too simplistic
My thanks to the rights holder who, at my request, freely gifted me with a complimentary copy of Pawn of Pharma, via Audiobook Boom. Not a book that I would normally recommend, unless to young adults, though it could form the basis of an exciting film..