The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan inflamed worldwide fears ofnuclear contamination. Governments refocused attention on experimentalmedications to protect humans from radiation damage. U.S. biotech companiesbacked by grants from the Pentagon led the field. Their efforts were boggeddown in promising trials with lab animals, which chronically failed in humans.Meanwhile, in Bordeaux, France, the freak discovery of a retired nuclear powerworker with a suspected natural resistance to nuclear radiation offered theprospect of a dramatic breakthrough. As word of the discovery spread, dangerclosed in. Which competitors from as far afield as London, Tel Aviv, Tehran, and Pittsburgh were behind the abductions, thefts of scientific material, and patent disputes blocking the French effort? Ultimately the genetic mysteries behind the discovery were much more complex than anyone imagined, threatening todestroy all efforts at a solution.



Ian Greenham was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia. After law school, he worked with one of Australia's leading commercial law firms, specializing in trade practices and environmental protection law. Leaving the law for the country's diplomatic service, he was in the Australian High Commission in Port Moresby soon after Papua New Guinea's independence, when he was recruited by a major U.S. bank. Assignments over the thirty years since in Sydney, Hong Kong, London, and New York revealed the seamy side of corporate financial life thatcolors the gripping reality of subplots in The Fisherman's Stamp. He currently lives in New York, close to his favorite venue in the city, Carnegie Hall. His companion is a native of Bordeaux, where they travel regularly. His daughter is a budding artist in New York and his son a neurology student.