The Scenturion Spy: Book One - Becoming a Spy

In this stimulating debut novel, protagonist Dr, Milton Davidson, MD, PhD, a pathologist and cancer researcher working at a prominent medical school in New York City, is recruited by the CIA as a spy, to provide intelligence on Russian military bioweapons research involving odors that target the brain directly through smell receptors in the nose. Davidson studied human olfaction during his graduate school education.Under the academic guise of a research sabbatical on environmental exposures to noxious odors, as well as a CIA cover of starting up a Moscow-based biopharmaceutical company focused on developing nasally-delivered therapies for neurological diseases (with assistance from the Israel-based Mossad), the young scientist/would-be entrepreneur/novice spy quickly becomes entangled in relationships with female spies that pose risks to both the mission and his life. Because the sense of smell is the least studied and understood of our five senses, this novel introduces a potentially new drug therapy involving smelling defined odors, as well as insight into an international competition on the use of scents in bioweaponry. Despite being protected by a prominent Russian oligarch who chairs the Board of his biopharmaceutical startup, his espionage comes under the scrutiny of Russia's dangerous military intelligence service, the GRU.Can Milt escape the scrutiny of the GRU? Can he gain the loyalty of the Jewish chemist who directs the Russian research on the use of odors in bioweapons? The answers to these questions unfold over the page-turning course of this exciting first novel breaking through the conventional genre, leaving us yearning for the sequel. The science described is authentic, but the author speculates on new medical approaches for both the lay reader and scientist.