Follett, Ken: Whiteout

Dutton © 2004, 374 pages [amazon]


Christmas Eve starts out poorly for Antonia Gallo,  head of security at Scotland's Oxenford Medical, when she discovers that two doses of a top secret experimental drug have gone missing. The drug is an antiviral agent, a potential antidote for the deadly Madoba-2 virus, and its disappearance suggests that the virus itself, kept in storage under the tightest possible security at the small pharmaceuticals firm, may have gotten out of the lab. In the next 72 hours Toni will find that the situation is far worse than she initially supposed: the security system at Oxenford has been breached by the one person capable of defeating its safeguards, someone who now has access to a highly infectious, easily released disease with a survival rate of zero. Throw into the mix an uncooperative police superintendent and an unexpected blizzard, and Toni may not be able to stop the bad guys from unleashing a plague with unprecedented killing power.

In the next 72 hours Toni will find that the situation is far worse than she initially supposed: the security system at Oxenford has been breached by the one person capable of defeating its safeguards, someone who now has access to a highly infectious, easily released disease with a survival rate of zero.We've seen this sort of book from Ken Follett before: a highly competent heroine battles an amoral--or at least insufficiently moral--antagonist while overcoming obstacles thrown at her by a difficult former lover. The story is told from multiple perspectives, and the heroine's ultimate victory over her nemesis is never really in doubt. But if the general outline of Follett's plot is familiar, so too is the author's skillful build-up of page-turning suspense. Follett never fails to fashion characters one wants to root for, and he is adept at keeping the good guys forever in the thick of some horrific danger. Whiteout, like its predecessors in the author's shelf-full of bestsellers, is a great read.

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