Ironically, I wrote the book The Tropics of Death and used the exact same pitch with 130 editors and agents: “A richly drawn tragedy in which a young doctor/adventurer traverses the Amazon (mission) in the pursuit of cancer.” The ones who replied with their rejections said it would be better as a romp or even a comedy. One editor did read it, emailing me to submit and commenting, “does he find cancer or does it catch up with him?” He wrote back: “This is the funniest book I ever read. Tragically funny because marketing just told me we’ve filled our quota for everything but paranormal or fantasy romance.”