Bookwild - Robert Bailey's The Boomerang: Hidden Cancer Cure, An Outspoken Land Baron and One Dedicated Father

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

This week, I got to talk with Robert Bailey about his emotionally driven action thriller The Boomerang. We dive into the inspiration for the book, the research he did for certain parts, and his favorite parts of writing the relationships in the book.The Boomerang SynopsisThe president of the United States has terminal cancer. Chief of Staff Eli James, his faithful consigliere and best friend, is one of the few who know. But just as the president’s condition mysteriously improves, Eli’s hit with another blow: his daughter has cancer too.Hell-bent on helping her, Eli turns to Big Pharma’s top lobbyist for advice, but their encounter yields more questions than answers. As he races along a twisted trail to the truth, he stumbles upon a devastating cover-up worth billions of dollars—and millions of lives.Armed with this deadly secret, Eli goes rogue, fleeing with his family out west. To keep them safe, he forms an uneasy alliance with land baron Nester “the Beast” Sanchez, known for his ruthless power tactics. An epic showdown brews, and it’s the state versus one desperate citizen, willing to risk everything to save his daughter. Can Eli broker a truce with his once allies? Or will there be war in the desert? Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

This week I got to talk with Robert Bailey about his new emotional action thriller, The Boomerang. This one tackles how complicated cancer care is in our country, as well as being really action-packed throughout. But here is what it's about. The president of the United States has terminal cancer. Chief of staff, Eli Jane, his faithful consiglier and best friend, is one of the few who know. But just as the president's condition mysteriously improves, Eli's hit with another blow. His daughter has cancer too. Helbin on helping her, Eli turns to Big Pharma's top lobbyist for advice, but their encounter yields more questions than answers. As he races

along a twisted trail to the truth, he stumbles upon a devastating cover-up worth billions of dollars and millions of lives. Armed with this deadly secret, Eli goes rogue, fleeing with his family out west. To keep them safe, he forms an uneasy alliance with land barren, Nestor, Beast Sanchez, known for his ruthless power tactics, an epic showdown bruise, and it's the state versus one desperate citizen willing to risk everything to save his daughter. Can Eli broker a truce with his one's allies, or will there be war in the desert? This book is wild. It takes so many different turns throughout the entire book. But Robert Bailey also was inspired to write this story by sitting in waiting rooms while his wife was dealing with cancer as well. And so you can feel how

emotional this story is of just wanting answers and wanting a solution. But it also has all of those really good hallmarks of like an action thriller as well. It goes across the country into multiple locations. And once the action gets going, it really doesn't stop. That being said, let's hear from Robert. I am very excited to dive into everything you brought up in the boomerang, all kinds of things. But I did want to get to know you a little bit more here before we dive in. So you've been a published author for a while now and you've written lots of books. But when did you know you wanted to write a book? Or did you like, what was your moment when you were like, I think I could be an author? So it was gradual for me. I always loved to read. And I took a creative writing class my last semester of college. And, you know, we wrote, I think, three or four short stories. Mine were terrible. I mean, I enjoyed the process and got enough positive comments to think there might be something there. And then when I was in law school, you know, I started thinking about the idea for the professor, you know, was starting.

but it was my first book that was kind of a smart aleck idea at the time of what would happen if this law professor actually had to try a case. But yeah, it stuck with me. And, you know, I'm a situational writer, so that kind of gave me a situation. You know, what would happen if a professor of law had to go back to the courtroom after many years of teaching. And so that helped. And along the way, I read Stephen King's book on writing, which has been the inspiration. I think. think for so many, you know, writers. And I think it really was kind of freeing for me to read his advice, which is so simple. But yet, so to me, it was just really moving. And so gave it a shot. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that would be the book that could help you with that. I've read it as well.

And the part that stuck with me is when he talks about like in your first draft, like tell yourself the whole story and then you can go back and remove the parts that aren't the story. And kind of like you're saying, it's so simple, but you're also like, oh, okay, okay, I see how I could actually write something. Yeah. How did your writing process develop? So do you outline, do you pants it? Like, how do you approach each book? Or is it different with each one? So for the professor, I totally panced it. And, you know, I ended up with an 800-page first draft, which was way too long. I really taught myself how to write by writing.

And one of the things that I had to learn how to do was, you know, to amp up the pacing of the story and to cut out fluff. And I just did that trial and error, really. Yeah. It really did help to have his advice, you know, Stephen King's advice about just write it all. And then get out of your own way. it's going to stink the first draft, so don't be too judgmental, and then go back and try to fix it. And I think what's happened to me along the way is I do benefit some from kind of a loose synopsis,

where I will write a three or four-page synopsis that's just a general story outline. It's not a specific outline. Too much outlining tightens me up. So I'm just going to have a general idea of the story so that beginning through end, so that I have a roadmap in case I get, you know, some blockage or if I take a dirt road too long, you know, I could come back to where I was. Totally. Do you get to know your characters as you're writing, or do you do any, like, character prep ahead of the time?

I think for some characters, definitely they evolve, you know, over time. And, you know, a lot of times that happens with supporting characters, where at first you just want them for a specific thing. And then you realize, hey, I may want them for something else, or maybe the main character just needs something. And we've already introduced this character that happened with the Jason Rich series and his neighbors, the Tony Dandel brothers, which were really just supposed to be window dressing. And then as the stories evolve, they become kind of part of his family. And so I think with the main character, I normally have a pretty good idea. But even they sometimes will surprise me along the way. And that's the fun of writing to me.

If there weren't little surprises like that along the way, I don't think it would be near as much fun. Yeah, I've definitely heard people comment on that type of, like, yeah, they want to be surprised. And if they're surprised, then they feel like the readers will be surprised. So all of that's kind of fun to have come together. I did see that you also went to law school. and a lot of your previous ones obviously focus on the law or lawyers or law professors. Is there anything about that part of your life that you've found kind of like transcends into your writing? I think as a lawyer, you know, you meet so many wonderful characters in the practice of law,

clients, judges, people that work at the courthouse. I think that my writing is definitely being informed by the people I've met along the way. I do think as a trial lawyer, you are storytelling in a way. Each case is its own story. The witnesses are characters. And when you try a case, it really is like putting a play on for the jury. And so I think there's a lot of synergy between the two professions. And definitely being a lawyer, I think, has made me a better writer.

And I think until I retired last year as a lawyer, I think being a writer made me a better trial lawyer just because I was more informed in the storytelling aspect of it. Yeah. It is. It's so interesting to me the different ways that stories are useful in all kinds of professions since like we kind of like as humans process so much stuff through story or it helps us understand a point of view. So that totally makes sense that it kind of goes back and forth. Like it actually helps that. The writing helps the lawyering part. And then the lawyering part kind of helps the writing part.

Absolutely. Yeah. So with this book, I did read in your acknowledgments. There's some personal inspiration for this book. What was kind of the moment where you were like? I really think I could write a thriller that actually really tackles cancer, treatment and health care in America? I think for me, you know, my dad and wife both had cancer at the same time in 2016 and 17.

My dad had terminal lung cancer. And then my wife had stage three, early stage three lung cancer. And she was not a smoker. It was in good health. So it was really a shock. They were treated at the same time. It was a really high intensity kind of moment in our. life and just had this front row seat for cancer treatment in America. And, and, you know, they both,

you know, were treated well, had good doctors, but, you know, it was very frustrating, you know, because really if you're not a surgical candidate, which my wife, thankfully was, there's not a whole lot that they can do to get rid of it. You know, my dad was just buying time, you know, and he fought hard. And his prognosis was eight months. He lived 10 months. But I think along the way, you know, it really informed my storytelling because, you know, I'd never really got a chance to mourn my father before he died, you know, or after he died because my wife went right into her surgery a month later.

And so, you know, I think that I wrote a little inspirational novel called The Golfers Carol, which was sort of a tribute to my father and sort of allowed me to mourn him. And that was kind of side A to our cancer journey. And then side B is the boomerang. You know, the boomerang is what you hear in waiting rooms when you're waiting for news that's going to define your life. And people are nervous and they're desperate and they talk. And these are the things that they talk about.

Yeah. Isn't there a cure? And if there was a cure, you know, would the government hide it from us? And I think those types of, you know, nervous chatter is what informed this story. and I thought it would be interesting to explore. I thought it would be therapeutic for me to put out some of the thoughts and feelings that I had. And certainly some of the inner chapters in the book, you know, the scenes at MD Anderson and then the waiting room. Even the fundraising scene at the end are thoughts and feelings I've had about, you know, what happened with my family.

And so to be able to put all of that into a story. And then, you know, at the heart of the boomerang is a family journey, you know, what a family is willing to do and what Eli James is willing to do to save his daughter's life. And so I feel like beyond the conspiracy, that's what the story is really about. And I think Eli is every parent. He's not a great guy the first time you meet him in the story. But I think you can bond with Eli through that journey that so many people have. What would you do for a family member? You do whatever it took.

And so that's how he feels about his daughter. And I think that type of desperation is something I wanted to explore in the story and the backdrop of the conspiracy or just stems from things I heard in waiting rooms. Yeah. Yeah. And the tension for him of like he has other, he has like professional duties to, feel allegiant to but also at the end of the day it's going to be your family who you're going to take care of the most um so how did you really approach like that's his tension kind of throughout the whole novel is like how much am i willing to be morally ambiguous like what all am i

willing to do um so how did you kind of like connect to that very emotional part with like a a thriller plot that kind of thrives in a desperate scenario. I think his role as chief of staff, you know, creates a lot of that tension. You know, he's a very best friend in the world, is Lionel Cantrell, who becomes the president. You know, I put that first scene in the story to show how far these guys go back, you know, Lick-Skillet forever. They grew up in this little town called Lick-Skillet, Alabama, and they grow up to be president and chief of staff. And they are best friends.

you know, there is a very much a tension that happens between them as Lionel is given this wonderful gift and told not to tell anybody. And his best friend, his goddaughter, you know, gets cancer and he can't do anything about it. And then Eli sees his best friend getting better while his daughter is fading away with all this chemo. And he is desperate. And he has connections through big pharma, through just being the chief of staff. He uses those, which I think a person would do in that situation. And then he figures it out. And once he figures it out, that's when he has to do it.

You know, he faces the ethical dilemma of what am I going to do with it? And of course, he chooses his daughter over the country. And really over everyone else. This is about him, Dave and Bella, more so than the world. I think that's what makes the story, at least from his end, really real, is he's dealing with these real issues. and the betrayal that he feels from his friend and from the people that ought to be there helping him. And he's, you know, he's kind of out, you know, on an island. But, of course, he has his team and his mom and his, yeah.

And then, of course, his wife's friend Nestor, who's this bad guy that becomes a good guy in the story. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. It also is really, it's what Eli is unraveling to is kind of like government. conspiracies, but also like big pharma as well. And I, when I was reading this, I coincidentally saw an interview with someone who was saying, a woman who was saying like we're trying to convince, like, companies that do medical tests to do more testing on women because we, for years, we've just done a lot of our medical testing on men, so there's not as much information for women. And she was saying how the only way that she could get people's attention was by putting it into

dollar values and being like if you focus on women here is this big industry that you could then like that isn't being capitalized on and you can do that and it's like she's not wanting to put a dollar amount on it but it's the only way to get them to pay attention so some kind of similar stuff there did you do it sounds like you heard people in waiting rooms but did you do any other research into like big pharma and like the relationship with the government yeah You know, one of the things that changed a little bit in the plotting of the story is that I feel like the story became really a government conspiracy more so than Big Pharma. I think government is afraid of what Big Pharma will do with the cure once they have it. They don't trust them to make it the right way, to distribute it the right way, to give it, you know, to do it right.

I mean, they are worried about pharma. And so that is a big part of Project Boomerang, the Department of Defense Initiative, that covers it up's reason for doing so. And I think the overriding tension, I think there also is, and one of the characters talks about it is, you know, you have all of this inefficiency now, you know, with medicine and with pharmacological stuff where it's just the while, while west, where a prescription may cost this. but if you have this coupon and this RX card and this blank, it costs this. And it's like, you know, it's not black and white. It's really gray. And, you know, should this test be ordered? Well, if you give this symptom, that's eight more tests and all this money.

And I feel like this story comes along at a time where people are really frustrated by that. Yes. I've heard from doctors who are kind of aging out and retiring, how frustrated they are with it. And so I feel like this story dances around some of those frustrations. And also takes advantage, I think, of some of the ways people feel about government now. You know, are we being told everything? And so certainly we deal with some of that. Yeah, totally.

There is, also when I was reading this, we watched Black Mirror just had new episodes coming out. So I'm just plugging one little episode, the first one, really dives into health care and what you're willing to pay when you don't have any option, which gets scary, as you can imagine, in a blackmail episode. But it's scary in real life, too, just like your book is not sci-fi. Like, this is the stuff that's happening to real people, too. But you were talking about the Wild West of, like, RX cards or, like, if you get, this off of the drug manufacturers website. It'll be this much cheaper. It doesn't make any sense how we're pricing things. But it was also reminding me of in the book, we kind of start in D.C., which is obviously like the political capital of our country. And then we kind of end up in the

Wild West. That's what made me think of it when you were saying that. And so was it purposeful how you change the setting to kind of match the story? Yes, so that was on purpose. The New Mexico setting, which makes up at least a third and maybe a half of the story, is really close to my heart. My wife grew up in New Mexico, and we visited there quite a bit over the last 20, 25 years. Both, you know, I didn't realize the first few times we were there that I was subconsciously doing book research. But certainly last year when I went, I was doing some book research. And I just wanted to, you know, to bring some of the cultural elements there into play, some of the landmark places.

I always like to do that in my southern, you know, thrillers and stories. I feel like that's a great way to connect with readers. And I felt like here, you know, it really amped up the story to have this big power meeting at the top of the Sandia Peak, the highest point there in Albuquerque. I had been there. And it really is an awesome place, even if you're not having this real, you know, crazy, high-powered meetings. but when I feel like scenes like that where you can bring in a real place help and and certainly in Nestor Sanchez and the story is that John Dutton type figure that the government's afraid of. He's he's one of Eli's contacts.

You know, Eli has people that, you know, are powerful in his, you know, in his rolydex, so to speak. And Nestor's probably the most powerful one. And his wife's, you know, best friend. And he's a little uneasy about this partnership. ship, but, you know, desperate times call for desperate measures and it brings, you know, the person the government's probably most afraid of right into the rearview mirror. And, you know, that was, it was kind of fun to make the bad guy, the good guy in this story.

Because he never really stops being bad. But in my story, you know, at least he's not a hypocrite, you know. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the relationship between Eli and him, you kind of touched on is like, very, very, you know, very unique and very dynamic and there are a lot of layers going on, but they also do need to

depend on each other. Did you have fun kind of like writing their interactions since they were so different? Yes, probably some of my most fun in the story, you know, when I've got two guys and I've foreshadowed Nestor for 300 pages and now I've got them both, you know, on the banks of the Rio Grande and they're breaking down, you know, what's about to happen. And it's, I was nervous, you know, as the writer, and I, you know, I feel like when you have the nerves and the jitters, the reader will too, you know, when I'm feeling tears, the reader will feel tears. And so I was a little nervous for those scenes. And I feel like, you know, I hope that translates over to the page because that was the idea.

Yeah. Yeah. Kind of what you're talking about, too, is like the big emotional moments are there. And there, there is a lot of like emotion and heart to this novel. But, And it also very much is a thriller too. So how did you kind of use like the emotional moments, but also like keep the plot going? I feel like there's just a balancing act of that. And the only way that happens a lot during editing, you know, where you're reading it and you're like, like I kind of, you know, sometimes a book will start off and it's just, you know, really fast. Yeah. You can almost feel like, gosh, I need a breather.

You know, let's while it back and show. the reader, the character, softer side, or something else, part of the setting. And I feel like with emotional parts to the story, in this story, sometimes the emotional parts drove some of the tension, especially when they're finding out whether Bella is cured of the disease or not, and they're in the cancer center, and the government's closing in. And I sort of used the emotions to amp up the tension, which was unique to this story and certainly played off of that. And then some of the emotional scenes, one of my favorite scenes is in the barn with Nestor and Eli's mom and they're about to go to the peak. And it's, you know, it's a slow emotional

moment, but it's right before a really big moment. So I feel like you can have little ebbs and flows in the story where you're sort of tuning up the band, so to speak. And I feel like that's when it really works. Yeah, it does help you feel more connected to the characters, which I do feel like raises the stakes of everything that's happening because you're so invested in like all of their feelings before they're about to have to go do something really terrifying. With the research process, did you, did you stumble upon any just absolutely wild conspiracies that you're like, we're not going to include that one? No, I mean, I did a lot of research for this book. You know, I think that, you know, I wanted to get all the various settings right. I wanted to, you know, I really come from the angle that there's already a cure.

You know, we don't spend a lot of time on the medicine behind it. And that was intentional because I wanted the book to feel more like a conspiracy thriller. And I didn't want to bog the story down in too much of that because I know that, you know, an oncologist, you know, that reads this is going to to have reactions to that and I really just wanted to create you know a world where there is a cure and right so for me I just wanted to get some of the the talking points right and let and sort of you know just you've got to buy into that right from the opening page yes and then beyond that I feel like I just wanted to you know you want the story to feel as real as it can even though the premise is really wild.

So I feel like a lot of times you have to do that by kind of foreshadowing. You know, if I had introduced Nestor on page three and showing him, then he wouldn't have been near as, you know, powerful as, you know, foreshadowing him for 200 pages. And then he comes out. And so that's part of the process too. And of course, I make mistakes. You know, in the editing, I had five or six people in this two-person Apache helicopter. And so I ended up having a good nest or two helicopters, you know, because I didn't want to lose the Apache.

It was too cool. And so I ended up giving him a second one. And then I was like, well, gosh, you know, should this guy have two helicopters? And go through that. But at that point, I was like, everybody knows he's such a badass for lack of a better. Yeah. You know, is it that much of a stretch for him to have more of an arsenal? So right. He is such a huge figure in the book. Uh, and in your comparison to the Dutton's like really, uh, amplifies that or explains that really well. Did you, did you do anything or like, did you have fun building out what his version of like extreme wealth and power was like? Oh yeah. Yeah. I loved. The character is so down to earth to be so powerful. You know, he, he, he wears a.

shirt that says nestor on it you know and i knew a powerful man in charlotte north carolina when i was growing up who had a shoe dressed like that very much like the people that worked with him and i just thought that was a clear detail and then you know he lives in los lunas when he could live in a castle he lives amongst the people you know and um and then of course he um nobody's ever really gotten a good look at him either and so uh that's another another part of the nestor you know, mystery. So, yeah. And then, and then I also wanted to play up the fact that the, the governor there kind of likes him.

You know, he's kind of a necessary evil that keeps, that keeps sort of the place safe, you know. So there is a benevolence to the man, even though he is a bit of a monster. Right. I know. And sometimes we need people like that who are both is like kind of the other part. it's also reminding me that, like, in some ways without the existence of him or in the real world of someone like him, then the government could be going so unchecked because there's no one that they're nervous about or who they would have to, like, hear something about from.

So what kind of what were you a little bit like aiming at with, like, a government that doesn't want someone? else to have the cure for cancer, like the interplay there of like them thinking, oh, that's too powerful versus like, no, like this should be a good thing. Yeah, I think that a lot of that the government worry was financial, you know, that it would cripple the economy, which, you know, maybe it would or maybe it wouldn't. But that was the kind of thing that I heard in waiting rooms as the reason why people would think the government might hide it. And then, And certainly once Eli takes it to New Mexico and he's working with Nestor, the government's scared to death that this powerful man is going to have this huge ship, this powerful person and to use against them. And so that amps up the desire to take him out too, which is what General Randolph told me.

He's he's trying to, he's a monster too. He's got two monsters. Yeah. Who's going to win? and Randolph is kind of the foil for for the government perspective in it. And of course, his perspective is wrong. But at least in the book, I try to give him reasons for it. I try to give him.

Right. In his mind, he feels like he's doing something noble, even though to the reader, it's likely monstrous. Yeah, totally, totally. I'm not going to say the ending. I mean, keep it spoiler-free. but there are some people who don't make it to the end. Did you know when you were starting the book that you had a plan for some people to be sacrificial? I think that I did.

I feel like the ending of the book was pretty clear in my mind. There were a few of the supporting characters whose endings changed a little as we got into it. And I felt like we needed just a little more consequence, you know. Yeah. And a lot of times that happens because you want the reader to feel the consequences of the actions of the characters. Right. Yeah. And definitely, I feel like some of the, some of those deaths really amp up the conflict for the family and make it.

Yes. Make it more real for them. Not that it needed to be any more real, more real. Yeah. And so that's tough. You know, I hate sometimes you do that and you go back. I've gone back and looked at characters I've killed off in other books. And I'm like, wow, I wish I still have that character.

Yeah. You're like, what was I thinking? What was I feeling? So at the end, I have been asking people, do you read while you're writing? And if you have, have you read anything that you loved recently? Yes. So I do read while I'm writing. And I read a vast variety of things.

The last book I read was a man called Ove by Frederick Bogman, which is the book that a man called Otto, the movie was based on. And it was fantastic. You know, I loved it. Yeah. And I've been on a bit of a inspirational novel kick. Before that, I read Wally Lamb's book, She's Come Undone, which had been recommended to me by several people.

And it was fantastic. just an amazing main character. And so I feel like sometimes, and those are books that just were recommended to me, and I thought, would be good. I think you've become a better writer by reading different types of stuff and just seeing how that writer made choices along the way. You know, making choices is what it's all about, and it's hard sometimes, you know. I'm writing my 12th book now, and I'm in the midst of it, and it's still hard, you know.

I mean, it never gets pretty much easier. Sometimes it's in some ways harder because you know when it's bad now. Right. Sooner. Yes. So anyway. Yeah, I'm trying to finish a draft of a first book myself. And I, that's what I started to run into.

I was like, I kept telling my husband, I'm like, you have to write every scene, though. Like, you have to come up with so many scenes. And then you're like, is it good? No, this could be better. And it's like, oh, there are more scenes you still got to write? it just doesn't stop. So it is, lots of choices to get to the end of a book. Yeah, absolutely.

Where can people follow you to stay up to date with everything? Yeah, so Robert Bailey Books is my website, Robertbaileybooks.com. And then if you go there, it has my Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and all that stuff on there. We normally keep those pages pretty up to date. Yeah. We're going to have a nice book tour for the boomer.

It'll start as a poison pen in Scottsdale, Arizona. And we're going to do a lot of regional events here in Alabama. And then I think we're going to do some in Texas and New Mexico as well. So it'll be a bigger tour than I've done before, which makes sense because there's more geography, you know, in this book. Oh, yeah, that's true. That's awesome. Well, I will put all those links in the show notes and otherwise, thank you so much for chatting with me about the boomeret. Thank you, Kate.

I was honored to be on the show. I appreciate it. Thank you.