The Boomerang

The Boomerang 

By Robert Bailey 

Thomas and Mercer, 2025 

Hardcover: $28.99 

Genre: Suspense Thriller 

Reviewed by Edward Journey 

In the 1970s, there was a spate of excellent movies, usually adapted from a book, which were paranoid political thrillers. Among the best of these are All the President’s Men, The China Syndrome, The Conversation, The Parallax View, and Three Days of the Condor. All reflect a growing distrust of the authorities. These films come to mind while reading Robert Bailey’s The Boomerang, which comes at a time when paranoia is rampant across the political spectrum.  

Here is the premise of Robert Bailey’s fast-paced new thriller, The Boomerang: The United States government has the cure for cancer. It is being concealed because the revelation would make much of the oncology industry obsolete. “The sudden loss of jobs, careers, and money would be staggering and could cripple, if not destroy, the national economy.” Naturally, Big Pharma would not be on board with such a cure. Government officials from the Pentagon, Homeland Security, and the F.B.I. are guarding the secret strenuously, “eliminating” any threats to the secret being divulged. People have disappeared and died – collateral damage. 

In The Boomerang, Lionel Cantrell, the newly-elected American President, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer days before the election, has kept his diagnosis secret from everyone except Eli James, his closest friend and chief of staff. On inauguration day, General Kyle Randolph, who somehow knows, gives Cantrell top secret access to the “boomerang,” codeword for the cure, and told not to disclose its existence to anyone. The general, the head of the F.B.I., and the Secretary of Homeland Security want to keep the President alive so that his boob of a Vice President cannot ascend to power. Meanwhile, Eli, whose wife, Dale, is filing for divorce, is hit with the news that their seventeen-year-old daughter, Bella, has cancer in both lungs.  

Thus begins the plot, and, honestly, the most far-fetched thing is that the Presidential inauguration seems to be held without either a parade or the requisite balls. Eli, upon learning Bella’s dire diagnosis, rapidly shifts from being the President’s chief of staff to being a determined and desperate father as he searches for any hope for his daughter. Dale, a high-powered attorney, takes an extended leave from her job, and the search for options for Bella becomes all-consuming, involving multiple locations and many people.  

The Boomerang is Robert Bailey’s eleventh novel and once again demonstrates his talent for creating vivid characters with compelling backstories introduced amid conspiracies that are perhaps too believable. Eli’s mother, Foncie, who happens to be a crack investigator, reminds him that it is not paranoia if they are out to get you, and, under the circumstances, that tired truism has never seemed truer. Eli’s mother, his father, and Dale’s extended family in New Mexico become part of the search for answers. Lurking in the shadows is Nester Sanchez, an old friend of Dale’s, called the “most dangerous man in America!” and “the Beast,” who made major contributions to Cantrell’s presidential campaign and expects a presidential pardon in return. 

The family and community that Eli and Dale gather in their quest bring a powerful element to the novel. How far will we go to protect those we love? Whom can we trust? In the political world of big contributions and the power of the lobby, how long must politicians “dance with the one that brought us”? Those are the questions that make The Boomerang resonate in our contemporary setting. Bella’s illness creates a fissure in a decades-long relationship between the President and his closest friend and adviser. As a devoted but flawed parent, Eli wonders if God is punishing him for his sins. It is this personal human element that brings heart and emotion to a story filled with excitement, suspense, and intrigue. There is plenty of action in this thriller, but it is the human life-and-death drama that makes it hard to put down. 

Early in The Boomerang, an informant asks Eli, “Do you know how powerful the Department of Defense is?” There are chilling examples of that power, especially at the hands of a rogue general with a twisted sense of patriotism. As the plot thickens, Foncie reminds her son that they are all “swimming in dark water.” On many occasions in the book, there are incidents that illustrate that “silence is acquiescence.” 

The Boomerang raises issues that the reader may think about long after the book is over. But it is also a fun read with an imaginative plot and surprises on every page. The ancient Greek playwrights sometimes used a device called deus ex machina (“god from the machine”) to resolve seemingly impossible situations in their plots; with Robert Bailey, it is more like chaos ex machina at times, and those moments are elaborately entertaining. In The Boomerang, the stakes are high, the plot is sobering, and the thrills are plenty. 

Edward Journey, a retired university professor and theatre professional living in Birmingham, regularly shares his essays in the online journal “Professional Southerner” (www.professionalsoutherner.com).