Robin Cook "Carrier"

Author: Robin Cook First edition: 1999 Original title: Vector Medical topic: biological weapons: Bacillus anthracis, Clostridium botulinum Description: A continuation of the adventures of Jack Stapleton, an employee of the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office, familiar to readers of *The Plague*. This time, our hero faces off against Yuri Davydov, a former microbiology technician from Sverdlovsk and a Siberian defector who conducted research on enhancing the potency of anthrax and botulinum toxin. As an immigrant in the United States, he sincerely hates his new homeland and resolves to wage war against it. He is aided by representatives of the LAA—the People’s Aryan Army—who procure all the materials needed by the Russian biological weapons specialist for an operation in which a significant portion of the city’s population is to be killed. The book is full of humor; the rank-and-file members of the LAA, as well as Yuri himself and his Black wife Connie, are highly caricatured characters who commit numerous blunders, jeopardize their mission at every turn, and disregard basic safety protocols—yet in the terrifying vision Cook presents to us, they are a deadly threat to society. It turns out that neither government officials nor law enforcement suspect a thing—only Jack Stapleton remains. This book is fascinating, and its humor is thoroughly entertaining—yet any reflection on it leads to terrifying conclusions. The vision of a world in which individuals possess knowledge so advanced that they can threaten the entire society is, after all, very real. It’s also worth recommending to anyone who has already read a few of Cook’s books and would like to find something revelatory in the next one—*The Carrier* shouldn’t disappoint anyone. Especially after reading *The Plague*, whose characters all appear in this book as well. A truly brilliant book.