Timing is often everything. And so Peter Rost - the pharmaceutical gadfly, whistleblower, author and blogger - is taking advantage of a recent news item to promote his latest book. Having already penned ‘The Whistleblower,’ which is about his well-publicized runs-in with Pfizer over allegations of illegal marketing, Rost has now written a fictional thriller.

And he likens it to details contained in a June 27 story in The Washington Post, which described how the CIA recently declassified secret documents revealing the agency asked several drugmakers to pass along samples of medicines rejected for commercial sale “because of unfavorable side effects.” The drugs were tested on monkeys and mice in a US Army lab.

And Rost says his new book, ‘Killer Drug,’ is ‘about one such drug company.’ This has a familar ring. Big pharma is a popular target in popular culture now. John LeCarre’s ‘The Secret Gardener,’ about a corrupt drugmaker, was made into a movie and didn’t do much for the industry’s reputation. Whether Rost’s new tome will be a killer book remains to be seen, but you can be sure it will be provocative.