Date first published	21 August 2000
ISBN Number	0-00710 166 X
Page Count	432 p/b
h/b= hardback : p/b= paperback

Storyline

An unknown doomsday virus has claimed the lives of four people - including the fiancee of Covert One's Lt. Col. Jon Smith. Devastated and enraged, Smith uncovers evidence that this was no accident; someone out there has the virus and the pandemic that threatens millions of lives was planned... Not knowing who to trust or where to turn, Smith assembles a motley team to fight against the deadly virus. As the death toll mounts, the quest leads them to the highest levels of power and the darkest corners of the earth. Smith and his team must hunt down a genius determined to destroy them.

Review

I have to say I really enjoyed the book. For the first in a new series it is remarkably good. I hadn't remembered that we knew so much of Jon Smiths life, before joining Covert One, or his reasons for joining.

We join Smith at a time when life is good he has a girlfriend and a job. He is fairly cavalier in his attitude to his superiors, and does what he wants, within the military confines. Then by pure accident, it is all gone, and all because his girlfriend remembers a very obscure fact from her college days.

It is also important to point out that Smith is effectively alone, he is not part of an official investigation towards the end of the book (he's officially AWOL), and in fact Covert One is only mentioned in the closing paragraphs of the book.

The medical stuff is handled in a reasonably logical manor - I couldn't say whether fact meets fiction. The action is pacy, without being super human, which makes a nice change.

The idea behind the book is not new, a rogue element within a company manufacturing a new plague. However, this was done for money - most of the other times I have seen it done, it was for ecological, or idealogical reasons.

Smith comes across as a nice guy, racked by remorse, for the death of his to be brother in law. His fiancee's sister hates him, and believes that he could have saved her husband, and is not the sort of person you want to meet in a life or death situation. However the story does set the relationship off.

There are some other peripheral characters, utilised to get out of difficult situations, and they are nicely fleshed out. The British Peter Howell is quite a nice character, although a bit stereotypical.

To some up a good fast read. A story that cuts to the chase, without the diabolical dialogue that Ludlum could sometimes produce.

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