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Biological Thrillers Crime Fiction Booklist
Page Modified: June 1, 2007
Includes tales of biological warfare, biological disasters or science-related thrillers.
A list of books, many of which received at least one starred review (indicating a work of unusual merit) from the following review sources: Booklist (BL), Publisher's Weekly (PW), Kirkus, and Library Journal (LJ). Additional titles of interest may be included on this list. Titles are alphabetically by author. Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.
- Ill Wind
Author: Anderson, Kevin J. and Doug Beason
Publisher: Forge $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312857608 Date: 1995
A terrifyingly believable thriller of biotechnology out of control. When a supertanker crashes off San Francisco, producing the largest oil spill in history, attempts to avert an ecological disaster result in the release of a virus that destroys anything made of petroleum--including everything made of plastic.
Updated 9.26.05 - The Devil's Workshop
Author: Cannell, Stephen J.
Publisher: Morrow $ 25 ISBN: 0688166180 Date: 1999
Hollywood moguls, hobos, and a beautiful microbiologist wind up in a terrifying race to stop antigovernment supremacists who've stolen the ultimate weapon.
Updated 10.3.05 - The First Horseman
Author: Case, John
Publisher: Fawcett $ 25 ISBN: 0449911020 Date: 1998
A North Korean peasant staggers across miles of icy terrain to tell a horrific story about a village decimated by disease, and soon an investigative reporter finds himself in the midst of a terrifying scenario.
Updated 10.3.05 - Vector
Author: Cook, Robin
Publisher: Putnam Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0399144714 Date: 1999
Kirkus
When Dr. Jack Stapleton and Dr. Laurie Montgomery (both last seen in Cook's Chromosome 6) witness some unusual cases in their capacities as New York City forensic pathologists, the question soon becomes whether the pair will solve the puzzle before a terrorist unleashes ultimate terror in the form of a modern bioweapon.
Suggested Reading: Crime Scene Investigations
- The Miracle Strain
Author: Cordy, Michael
Publisher: Morrow $ 24 ISBN: 0688155081 Date: 2005
This astonishing first novel has already created a sensation in Hollywood with movie rights acquired by Disney for over a million dollars. A story of retribution and redemption, The Miracle Strain is the tale of one man's battle to save his daughter's life and his chilling confrontations with a ruthless messianic religious cult.
Updated 9.26.05 - Jurassic Park
Author: Crichton, Michael
Publisher: Knopf $ 28.95 ISBN: 0394588169 Date: 1990
Kirkus
A man's experiment to genetically reproduce dinosaurs and create a dinosaur theme park goes terribly wrong.
Updated 11.22.04 - The Lost World
Author: Crichton, Michael
Publisher: Knopf $ 29.95 ISBN: 0679419462 Date:1995
Kirkus
The mega-bestselling author of such exciting novels as Disclosure and Congo unveils the electrifying sequel to his hit book/movie Jurassic Park. - Prey
Author: Crichton, Michael
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26.95 ISBN: 0066214122 Date: 2002
Booklist PW
Deep in the Nevada desert, an experiment goes horribly wrong as a cloud of self-sustaining nanoparticles escapes from the laboratory. They have been programmed as predators and mankind is the prey.
Updated 11.22.04 - The Experiment
Author: Darnton, John
Publisher: Dutton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0525945172 Date: 1999
Booklist
After escaping from a remote island off the U.S. East coast, a human clone goes in search of his original, who turns out to be a journalist in New York. Together, they embark on an investigation to uncover the whole truth about the colony.
Updated 9.23.05 - Plum Island
Author: DeMille, Nelson
Publisher: Warner $ 34 ISBN: 044651506x Date: 1997
PW
A major veteran of the "New York Times" bestseller list delivers a fast-paced, atmospheric tale of murder on a mysterious island. When Tom and Judy Gordon are found murdered in their waterfront home on Long Island, it appears to be burglary gone wrong. Then NYPD detective John Cory discovers a completely unexpected scenario: the Gordons were stealing and selling genetically altered viruses.
Updated 10.3.05 - Zero Option
Author: Deutermann, P.T.
Publisher: St Martins $ 25.95 ISBN: 031219210X Date: 1998
The breakout thriller by the author of Sweepers. Authentic, frightening, and packed with suspense, Zero Option tells what happens when a chemical weapon turns up missing--and the only option that exists is to find it somehow and destroy it.
Updated 9.26.05 - White Plague
Author: Herbert, Frank
Publisher: Putnam $ 14.95 ISBN: 0399127216Date: 1982
A biophysicist is devastated by the deaths of his wife and children in a terrorist bombing. To avenge his family, he develops and unleashes a deadly virus, the White Plague, which quickly affects the whole world. A science fiction classic that questions the ultimate wisdom of research in biological warfare.
Updated 10.3.05 - The Blood Artists
Author: Hogan, Chuck
Publisher: Morrow $ 24 ISBN: 0688156223 Date: 1998
A tour de force of imagination that brings the hauntingly rich landscapes of Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale together with the heart-stopping virological suspense of The Hot Zone, Chuck Hogan's new thriller takes readers deep into the rain forests of the Congo, where a deadly virus has been set free from a centuries-old uranium cave.
Updated 10.3.05 - The Carrier
Author: Holden, Scott
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 031220583x Date: 2000
A brilliant Harvard Ph.D. candidate discovers a cure for cancer--a discovery that pits him against his mentor and the FBI in a cross-country race against time.
Updated 9.23.05 - Midnight Plague
Author: Keizer, Gregg
Publisher: Putnam $ 25.95 ISBN: 0399153195 Date: 2005
PW
A heart-pounding tale--part historical suspense, part medical thriller--is set in the final months of World War II when an American doctor travels to occupied France to uncover the German lab where a biological weapon is being tested.
Suggested Reading: Medical Thrillers
Updated 6.29.05 - The Last Day
Author: Kleier, Glenn
Publisher: Warner List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0446522856 Date: 1997
BL
Kirkus
With the explosive energy of David Baldacci's Absolute Power and the cutting-edge science of Michael Crichton, The Last Day presents a brilliantly conceived thriller by an exceptional new writer. New Year's Eve, 1999: As the clock ticks toward the new millennium, the planet is suddenly rocked by a geological event of staggering proportions - followed by reports of the appearance of a woman with extraordinary supernatural powers.
Suggested Reading: If You Like Michael Crichton . . . - Fear Nothing
Author: Koontz, Dean
Publisher: Bantam Price: $ 26.95 ISBN: 0553106643 Date: 1998
PW
Christopher Snow is different from all the other residents of Moonlight Bay. For Christopher has made a strange peace with a very rare genetic disorder shared by only one thousand other Americans, a disorder that leaves him extremely vulnerable to light. His life is filled with the fascinating rituals of one who must embrace the dark. It is only at night that he is truly free. And then he witnesses a murder in the night - a murder only he can solve.
- Seize the Night
Author: Koontz, Dean
Publisher: Bantam $ 26.95 ISBN: 0553106651 Date: 1999
Kirkus
Christopher Snow, the protagonist of the international bestseller Fear Nothing, returns and is on the trail of missing children in Koontz's newest thriller. Snow believes the children are still alive and that their disappearances have something to do with clandestine scientific experiments at a nearby abandoned military base.
Updated 9.26.05 - Year Zero
Author: Long, Jeff
Publisher: Pocket $ 25 ISBN: 0743406117 Date: 2002
Booklist
On a remote Greek island, a wealthy artifact collector pries open a relic and unwittingly releases an ancient airborne plague, a virulent threat primed to obliterate all life on Earth.
Updated 3/14/02 - The Policy
Author: Lynch, Patrick
Publisher: Dutton List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0525943404 Date: 1998
Kirkus
A young analyst for a profitable life insurance company preparing to make a big push into the business of health care coverage senses something wrong: the statistics are too good to be true, and her colleagues are suddenly making an enormous amount of money. Coincidence? Or is the firm somehow manipulating the system for its own gain?
- Pandora's Clock
Author: Nance, John J.
Publisher: Doubleday $ 23.50 ISBN: 0385479441 Date: 1995
When the sudden collapse of a passenger demands an emergency landing of a routine flight from Frankfurt to New York, contact with the major airports of Europe brings a shocking response: No landing will be permitted. The passenger is the carrier of a virus so deadly that it can decimate millions in a matter of days.
Updated 10.3.05 - When the Wind Blows
Author: Patterson, James
Publisher: Little Brown List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0316693224 Date: 1998
Kirkus
In his best book yet, Patterson offers the most brilliant and original "what if" suspense novel to come along in a decade. When a young veterinarian whose husband has recently been murdered comes across an astonishing discovery in the woods near her animal hospital, she soon finds herself in the company of an unconventional FBI agent. - Sea Change
Author: Powlik, James
Publisher: Dell $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385333994 Date: 1999
As he searches for marine life in the Pacific Ocean, oceanographer Brock Garner instead discovers the ravaged bodies of humans. Brock is about to uncover a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions that is growing and gathering strength. Unless someone can kill this invisible killer, its next victim will be Seattle.
Suggested Reading: If You Like Clive Cussler
Updated 4.22.05 - Meltdown
Author: Powlik, James
Publisher: Dell $ 24.95 ISBN: Date: 2000
Deep in the Arctic, two crew members of Dr. Carol Harmon's research vessel are ravaged by what appears to be radiation poisoning. Carol calls on Brock Garner--oceanographer, ex-Navy man, and Carol's ex-husband. He's the one she trusts most and is at the South Pole when her call comes. They soon find something deep beneath the ice is leaking deadly radiation which could superheat the polar ice cap, leading to the first man-made Ice Age.
Suggested Reading: If You Like Clive Cussler
Updated 4.22.05 - Mount Dragon
Author: Preston, Douglas and Lincoln Child
Publisher: Forge $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312860420 Date: 1996
The bestselling authors of Relic return with a groundbreaking medical thriller--a uniquely topical techno-thriller about a genetically engineered virus that threatens to alter the future of mankind. "Swift, gruesome, and wickedly clever".--Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone.
Updated 9.23.05 - The Cobra Event
Author: Preston, Richard
Publisher: Random $ 25.95 ISBN: 0679457143 Date: 1997
Featuring details so shocking that they will be kept confidential until the book's publication, Cobra's Eye, written by the bestselling author of The Hot Zone, is an explosive and terrifying story inspired by real events and situations--and involving a very real agent of destruction.
Updated 9.23.05 - Frameshift
Author: Sawyer, Robert J.
Publisher: Tor $ 23.95 ISBN: 031286325X Date: 1997
Robert J. Sawyer, author of The Terminal Experiment (1995 Nebula Award for best novel), brings keen insight into the ramifications of the latest scientific breakthroughs to Frameshift. A scientist working on the Human Genome Project discovers that an insurance company is weeding out the weak and helpless to boost profits--and that the murderer may be the notorious Ivan the Terrible of the Treblinka death camp.
Updated 9.23.05 - The Magic Bullet
Author: Stein, Harry
Publisher: Delacorte $ 22.95 ISBN: 0385312865 Date: 1995
Kirkus
Conceived with dazzling insider's knowledge of cutting-edge medical research, this spellbinding new thriller--with a shocking "what-if" premise--propels readers relentlessly along on a hunt for the elusive cure for cancer. Set on the dark edge of American medicine, where human life takes a backseat to greed and ambition, The Magic Bullet promises to thrill, entertain, and inform.
Updated 9.26.05
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