«A Bachelor Party for Odysseus» by Albert M. Balesh

In this first in the Alex Bales Fiction Series, high-powered, Chicago CEO Alex Bales has it all, including a loyal friend named Randy Danhurst. Yet something is missing in his life. Alex’s flings with strange women and drunken debauchery bring him no satisfaction, and he has already begun to see the telltale signs of his body’s decline. He’s gone on like this for years, devoid of true happiness that transcends the material. Then a straw breaks the camel’s back, when Alex finds his friend Randy’s body dripping blood on a cold bathroom floor. That shock triggers introspection and a quest to relive his life, further encouraged by a mysterious ad Alex sees buried in the Chicago Tribune. It appears that a new experimental drug called FOY1 is about to be employed in a suburban research project. Alex makes the trek to the address listed in the ad, and that becomes the beginning of his plunge into deep, dark waters. He knows not whether the new characters he meets are real or imaginary. The strange character of Dr. Edward Stawson, the principal investigator in the experiment, promises to give Alex a new mental and physical identity at very little risk. Is Stawson, however, an uncompromising researcher or something far more sinister? Alex relives his life post-experiment, and goes down the “rabbit hole,” with the growing grim realization that something is amiss. Was his participation in Stawson’s experiment nearsighted, at best? Includes Readers Guide.