The Cobra Event
Author: Richard Preston
reviewed by Theresa Welsh
This book combines truth with fiction. The story of a woman doctor who gets drawn into an investigation of the strange and suddent death of a healthy teen-age girl in New York, the tale takes us on a chilling journey through the world of manufactured deadly viruses.
You'll not want to stop reading as you realize the background information to this story is real. The US government actually experimented with biological weapons in the late 1960s, releasing deadly viruses off an island in the South Pacific. The victims were monkeys, and the virus worked all too well. According to this book, the US got out of the deadly virus business, but others in the world did not. The story feels so real as we go along with inspectors to Iraq who locate the source of weaponized "cobra" virus, but are unable to do anything about it.
The virus has found its way to the US through a front corporation that is making the deadly brew in an innocent-looking office building. One unstable employee with access to the virus is all it takes to remove the killer bug from the confines of the laboratory. The symptoms of its victims simply look like a cold and soar throat, but quickly lead to death in a most horrible way. As similar deaths are found, Dr. Alice Austen joins an investigative team who follow a trail of clues to uncover the source. We are there in the autopsy rooms as Dr. Austin studies victims, and we feel her terror in the subway tunnel as she pursues the crazed suspect in the incredibly dramatic climax. The story is fiction, but the believability factor is high. This could happen.
The book provides a wealth of information, historical and medical, about bio weapons and how they can be created in a simple lab. The shocking truth is that it does not take millions of dollars or extraordinary expertise to create deadly viruses. Could Saddam Husein have these bio weapons and elude inspectors? The answer is an overwhelming yes. This book is a timely tale that could come true. The story moves along in frightening detail, and I found myself carrying it with me and reading at every space moment. This is a "can't-put-down" thriller with an important message.
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