Editorial Content for The Chemist

Juliana is on the run. In fact, she has been on the run for the past three years, since her handlers murdered her co-worker and tried to kill her. Juliana is Dr. Fortis, who thought she had landed her dream job with a secretive government agency, serving her country and protecting it from terrorism. And for six years, she had.

One day, however, her satisfying existence crashed to a halt, when a chance trip to the bathroom kept her alive when her friend and mentor, Dr. Joseph Barnaby, was poisoned. She was able to escape and for the last three years has managed to stay alive, despite the extreme efforts of her former employer to eradicate her. She has only stayed a step ahead on several occasions, but those steps saved her.

Juliana had an unusual job with the agency. As a trained physician, she was valued for her understanding of the human body and ability to create pharmaceuticals that could enhance interrogations. This would cause suspects to beg to confess with the hope that, if they did, the agony caused by the drugs would stop. Dr. Barnaby tried to prepare her for the agency’s eventual betrayal; no one, he said, could know the secrets that he and Juliana were privy to without becoming an enormous risk to their employers. So Juliana made a few preparations, but the poison gas that she evaded was a relative surprise. Still, she had some advantages, thanks to Barnaby: fake identities, quite a bit of money, and a huge cache of chemical agents to defend herself, just in case.

"Stephenie Meyer is a self-confessed fan of Jason Bourne, and with THE CHEMIST she enters the world of the political thriller with aplomb and skill."

Constant movement, name changes, unobtrusive housing and vehicles --- not to mention a series of lethal booby traps --- have kept Juliana both under the radar and among the living. For the most part, she has stayed away from the gaze of her previous employers. Yet the unrelenting, round-the-clock vigilance is beginning to take its toll. It’s not that she’s making costly mistakes; she’s just becoming exhausted from the ever-present strain of hiding from people who want (and have the means) to kill her.

One day, Juliana receives a message from Carston, her former handler. He needs her to come in and promises they are not trying to harm her. There is a danger to the American people, the kind that has the potential to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent, unsuspecting people. All Carston asks of Juliana is that she interrogate a suspect and find out the specifics of the terrorist attack, so that the agency can step in and prevent it. The suspect won’t even be harmed (on a long-term basis, anyway); he will be released following his interrogation and allowed to go back to his life as if nothing had happened.

Juliana knows that Carston could be lying, but he very well could be telling the truth, so she decides to assist him. She studies the files he gives her on the suspect, who looks like a good citizen and a fine person. He is a beloved teacher in a lower income neighborhood, coaches volleyball, volunteers with Habitat for Humanity, and truly makes a difference in students’ lives.

But then there are the other pictures, taken of him overseas. The kind teacher’s face is replaced by the hardened expressions of a professional, the type of person she can easily imagine taking an enormous amount of money to commit terrorism. Juliana meets the suspect, setting events in motion that cannot be reversed and that throw her into the paths of betrayal, assassination, murder and cruelty. Whom can she trust? How will she survive?

Stephenie Meyer is a self-confessed fan of Jason Bourne, and with THE CHEMIST she enters the world of the political thriller with aplomb and skill. Her heroine, Juliana Fortis (although you’ll know her by many other names), is strong, appealing and clever, yet vulnerable at times. Her adventures, which range from the terrifying to the incredible, still seem quite believable and captivating. I could not put this book down, having read it over just a few days. You’ll feel exactly the same way, and be astounded and beguiled by Meyer’s storytelling ability and Juliana’s ordeal.