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FBI Assistant Director Cunningham and criminal profiler Maggie O'Dell respond to what they believe is a bomb threat after receiving an oddly worded letter at their Quantico, Virginia, office. Backed by a crack SWAT team and the FBI bomb squad, Cunningham and O'Dell descend on the Virginia suburb of Elk Grove only to find a very different kind of disaster taking place there. Someone has introduced a deadly disease into the community. Highly communicable and totally incurable, this disease has already infected a mother and her child, leaving the woman near death and her daughter well on her way to the same fate. Contaminated by the child's body fluids, O'Dell and Cunningham are taken to an Army hospital at Fort Detrick, Maryland and placed in an isolation ward where their health is monitored by medical staff dressed in bio-hazard suits. Maggie finds her confinement stressful until she's given a computer and access to the Internet. When the plucky profiler begins researching key phrases used in the threatening letter, she finds they bear a strange similarity to the recorded words of other mass murderers. Knowing she may never leave the hospital alive, Maggie struggles to understand the mind of the person responsible for her situation. Her work on the Internet leads her to several conclusions. She conveys her suspicions to fellow Agent R J Tully who then begins to piece together the few clues available to the FBI. This is a taut thriller based in part on actual past crimes committed in the United States. Readers will recognize several of the serial killers mentioned in the story and admire the way Kava ties them into her plot. Strong characters and an interesting subplot featuring Agent Tully and his daughter lend reality to a drama involving a territorial tug-of-war between government agencies mandated to protect the public. As with most medical thrillers, present day science has been stretched to accommodate the plot. Medical personnel may note some flaws in the story. Most readers, though, will suspend disbelief for the sake of enjoyment and simply appreciate Kava's cleverness in weaving recent news reports into a tense yet satisfying story.
Reviewed by Mary V. Welk, August 2008
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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