TOBACCO THRILLER

COMES OUT SMOKING

By AMANDA DAVIS, Associated Press Writer
(c) 1996 The Associated Press

  The only problem with Frank Freudberg's Gasp is trying to figure out whom Hollywood will cast as the dying journalist - turned - terrorist whose vendetta against the cigarette industry kills almost 400 people. Because as sure as the sun rises in the east, there will be a movie version of this novel that takes a scary look at what a terrorist could do to the tobacco industry if he put his mind to it.
  Gasp opens at the Philadelphia home of Martin Muntor, the broken-down news editor whose diagnosis of terminal lung cancer has spurred him to take revenge on the industry that his cigarette habit has supported for years. His attacks are even more successful than he had  anticipated, and soon the FBI and the tobacco industry's private goon squads are searching for the man who calls himself Virgil -- and Virgil is good at being evil -- he avoids capture as the bodies pile up like cigarettes coming off the assembly line.
   Enter Tommy Rhoads, a tobacco company investigator who begins to realize that he might agree with the logic, if not the end result, of what Virgil is doing. Rhoads has a number of problems, including alcoholism, but he matches wits with Virgil and outsmarts the FBI as he helps track Virgil down in a conclusion that will keep readers riveted until the final page.
   Hollywood's leading actors should be asking their agents about this   one. If a movie version turned out to be as riveting as the book, it would be a big winner.

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THE UNDERGROUND CLASSIC
THAT TRIGGERED A NATIONAL FBI INVESTIGATION

Martin Muntor, a 54-year-old news editor working for a wire service in Philadelphia just learned he has an Stage IV lung cancer.   That's not good. It's inoperable. As the news sinks in, Muntor realizes there will be little chance he'll ever live long enough to make a name for himself as a hard-hitting, tell-it-like-it-is journalist.  He's disappointed.

Muntor doesn't intend to go quietly.  He's bitter -- and he's got a serious nasty streak.  Since he doesn't want to accept any personal responsibility for choosing to smoke (he claims the $7 million a day the tobacco industry spends on promoting cigarettes helped brainwash him) he looks around for a scapegoat.  Hello, tobacco companies!  Muntor hatches a scheme that is guaranteed to provide a substantial taste of fame -- and a hefty serving of sweet revenge -- at the expense of the industry he blames for his impending death.

In the novel that's already become an underground cult sensation throughout Europe and Asia, Muntor calls a Wall Street Journal reporter from a pay phone and tells her:  "The tobacco companies put something in cigarettes that kills people very slowly, very painfully.  I put sodium cyanide in cigarettes. That kills them fast.  If you were going to die from smoking, which would you prefer?"

To order a copy of Frank Freudberg's Gasp!, click here.