"Techno thriller"
Charles Dean pays a surprise visit to his friend Dr. James
Kegan only to find the body of a young Asiatic male lying
dead in his home and his buddy nowhere to be found. Dr.
Kegan has worked with viruses and bacteria that could be
made into weapons so a concerned Charles calls Desk Three,
the super high tech covert force. The director is
sufficiently worried so he sends Charlie to a scientific
conference that Dr. Keegan was supposed to attend. Once there he is kidnapped and sent to Austria where some
terrorists demand that he hand over the antidote. It
seems Charlie's friend developed a disease that resembles
rat-bite fever that is resistant to penicillin. A second
team is sent to Thailand where Dr. Kegan was studying
plants indigenous to the area. The weapon has been sold
to two countries that could use it as a weapon against the
U.S. They must destroy the weapons that are in the hands
of the terrorists and find an antidote before the disease
gets loose in the general population. Stephen Coonts and Jim De Felice have created a techno
thriller that starts off fast and by the end of the book
is moving at the speed of light. Although there is plenty
of action with agents using high-tech gadgets, the major
question that permeates the whole book is why did Dr.
Kegan, a good man by all accords, create this weapon and
where is he holed up. This mystery within a thriller is a
prime reason that Stephen Coonts always has his reader's
coming back for the next book he writes. Harriet Klausner
Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted April 30, 2004
|
