by Richard Preston
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Product Description
"A PAGE-TURNER . . . THOROUGHLY FRIGHTENING."
--Newsweek
"ENORMOUSLY ENTERTAINING."
--The New York Times Book Review
"THIS BOOK SCARED THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF ME. . . . Manages to grab you with the authenticity of its scientific detective work and haunt you with its sheer plausibility."
--Entertainment Weekly
Five days ago, a homeless man on a subway platform died in agony as startled commuters looked on. Yesterday, a teenager started having violent, uncontrollable spasms in art class. Within minutes, she too was dead.
Dr. Alice Austen is a medical pathologist at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. What she knows is that the two deaths are connected. What she fears is that they are only the beginning. . . .
Amazon.com Review
In New York City in the late '90s, a 17-year-old girl heads off to her private school even though she has a cold. By art class her nose is gushing mucus and she's severely disoriented. Within seconds, it seems, she's in convulsions and, most bizarrely, can't stop biting herself. All the reader can do is hope she'll die quickly, but Kate Moran's body still has a few more disgusting turns to undergo, and Richard Preston--a Jacobean master of ceremonies par excellence--takes us through them in bizarre and bloody detail. Clearly, whatever Kate had was a head cold with a scientific vengeance. Preston's heroine, Alice Austen, a doctor with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, realizes--in the first of several gripping autopsy scenes--that the girl's nervous system had been virtually destroyed. So far, only one other person is known to have died in the same way, but he was a homeless man. Austen must connect the two cases, seemingly linked only by the subway, before the media gets hold of them and drums up a paranoia-fest--and before the virus's creator can kill again. The Cobra Event is itself a paranoia-fest, a provocative thriller that makes you wonder exactly how much bioterrorism is taking place in the real world. Preston, best known for his terrifying chronicle of the Ebola virus, The Hot Zone, and other impeccably researched nonfictions, is not content to create fast-paced nightmarish scenes. His novel is instead a complex morality tale anchored in uncomfortable fact. Preston is keen to convey the "invisible history" of bioweapons engineering and, equally, to show the unsung heroism of his scientific detectives (along with that of the nurses and technicians who literally sacrifice their lives for medicine). Like their creator, these characters are not without a sense of humor. One calls the manmade virus "the ultimate head cold." Readers will never forget literally dozens of scenes and will never again see the subway, rodents, autopsy knives, and--above all--runny noses in the same light.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Great fiction about a possible viral attack in the US, 2008-11-19
He's written great nonfiction about Anthrax and smallpox. Very scary and fascinating. This is a what if book that will frighten you while entertaining you. I loved it.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
A crazy read.., 2008-11-15
I found this book after I read Preston's other book, 'The Hot Zone.' I didn't even get to finish it because it didn't hold my interest halfway into the book for some reason that I can't even remember. The beginning is the only thing that I remember. Talk about the gross-factor!
Anyways, I decided to give Preston another try when I went to the library. Wow, it was a good read. It was fast paced and it gave me the chills. I couldn't stop thinking about how real it felt when I was reading. I had a couple nightmares, as embarrassing as that sounds. So overall, it was a good read.
More into detail of the book, I couldn't relate to the characters. I also didn't really know much about them. I love characterization and there wasn't much of it in this book. However, the action and plot of the book made up for it I guess! It has gore and it's so descriptive that I would have barfed if my stomach was weak. As I said, the plot seems so real that it can scare you.
It's a fast read. It didn't take me too long to finish.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
A really good biological thriller..., 2008-10-15
I read this right after "Quantico" (Greg Bear) and this ending satisfied because it was realistic, no Deus Ex, the nasty is still with us (as it would be in the real world). Mr. Preston picked an interesting real world genetic disorder, stretched it into something that could be manufactured and made communicable, coupled it to an enigmatic bad guy (the good guys were pretty stock) and spun it into a bloody good story that was hard to put down.
I'll keep this one to read again.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Terrifying, 2008-10-10
Chemical and biological warfare is the scariest form of war to me since it is essentially invisible.
While this novel is fiction, it reads as a horrifying alternate reality. Mr.Preston has demonstrated his vast knowledge base on these topics with his nonfiction works.
The villain in this novel is too easy to imagine and this novel resonates with me on a regular basis as the true violent scenario to fear.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Guilty pleasure for science geeks, 2008-09-29
This book is the result of mixing Silence of the Lambs and The Andromeda Strain.
It's a nice technothriller, but the writing has some serious rough spots. Given that it's Preston's first fiction book those are somewhat forgivable.
It's a guilty pleasure I'd recommend to science geek for some light, very light, reading...
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