Whiteout, by Ken Follet, published 2003
Link to wikipedia plot summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteout_%28novel%29
It's a 'criminals working for terrorists steal lethal bacteria from UK research facility' thriller. The core of the plot was not new a hundred years ago. Especially the end - when the good guys have subsituted the lethal virus for common water. A young woman wannbie martyr sprays herself in a crowded theater to start the appocalypse, and then the bobbies are upon her and arrest her, breaking the illusion that she has just started the end of the world.
According to my mental library, the earliest story along these lines is the 1895 H.G.Wells story 'the stolen bacillus', http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12750/12750.txt
where a young anarchist wannabie martyr steal a deadly virus and infects himself to start the appocalypse, but it turns out that the scientist he stole it from was pulling his leg, and he has in fact infected himself with a minor disease which makes certain types of monkeys develop blue spots on their skin.
Follet does a good job of mixing colorful characters, have them fall in love with, rediscover, or betray each other.
Descriptionwise, this is a good book for aspiring authors to study, because it shows how a compelling thriller can be made by using only four places as props:
1. one house
2. one research facility
3. one theater
4. car interiors.
Perhaps if this book had been published ten years earlier, like 1992, it would have been fresher. Especially since back then kids really were excited by gameboys, as are the kids in this book.
In summary - a pleasant thriller, Crichton type of plot, but written with some /although no a lot of/ English elegance.
6 out of 10.
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