Downs, Tim: Plague Maker

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FBI agent Nathan Donovan, divorced, angry and self-professedly fearless, is one of four main characters in Tim Downs's Plague Maker who are coping, each quite differently, with the effects of grief. The relationship between Donovan and his ex-wife Macy Monroe, an expert in terrorist psychology and hostage negotiation, was sundered by the death of their four-year-old son, a recent loss. But the two old men we encounter in Downs' story have been living with their grief for some sixty years. The enigmatic Li is an English-educated Chinese man who offers Donovan information pertinent to a recent murder in a TriBeCa loft: the murder scene was noteworthy for the vast numbers of exterminated fleas found on and around the victim. Li believes the crime is related to World War II-era germ warfare experimentation--the Mengele-esque work of Japan's infamous Unit 731--conducted in part by Li's personal nemesis, Sato Matsushita.

Downs's story of a post-9/11 terror attack on New York is gripping and all too believable--at least to this average reader who is unfamiliar with the logistical difficulties inherent in breeding fleas and weaponizing the bubonic plague. The book is also studded with engaging dialogue and some superb descriptive passages: "His face was long and drawn, and it widened at the bottom, where great  sagging jowls bagged around his neck. It gave him the overall appearance of a melting candle, drooping under its own weight, as if at any moment his face might ooze over his collar and onto the desk." The writing is good, the characters well-developed--though one can argue that Li is too much the quintessential wise man to be quite credible--but mostly Plague Maker a ripping good story that you'll stay up too late to finish.