Oh yes, I read that a couple of years ago or so. He does a good job of stealing the names and some tropes from alchemy, and carefully avoiding the issue of whether or not it works, but is ultimately just another thriller written by a slightly incredulous author.
I did manage to get to the end of it without any trouble, and the characters are sufficiently 2.5 dimensional that you can get along with them.
I came across it when I was Googling 'Cambriel alchemy' to see if the 'Cours de philosophie hermétique' had been translated into English (it doesn't seem to have been so I may do it).
