Bioterrorism is realistic threat in new Cook book

Author's latest medical thriller, `Vector,' taps fear of undiscovered illnesses

Web posted March 7, 1999

By Waka Tsunoda
Associated Press

Robin Cook has written plenty of scary medical thrillers, but his latest, Vector (Putnam, $24.95), is probably the scariest.

That's because it deals with a real and imminent danger to everyone -- biological terrorism.

As Mr. Cook points out in an author's note, the world is full of life-threatening menaces such as AIDS and war, but few ``have the capability of killing so many so fast.''

Yet government health agencies seem unprepared for the threat, with no plan to provide vaccines and antibiotics, or to detect illnesses in time to save lives. Vector effectively dramatizes this very frightening situation.

As the novel opens, Yuri Davydov, a disgruntled New York taxi driver, and a couple of hate-filled members of a violent far-right organization are plotting to spray the Big Apple with deadly anthrax bacterium and botulism toxin.

Yuri, who had been a technician in a Russian bioweapons factory, manufactures anthrax in his basement laboratory. He tests it on an unsuspecting rug merchant, who dies. But even Jack Stapleton, the novel's protagonist, who performs the autopsy, does not immediately suspect budding bioterrorism.

Are millions of New Yorkers doomed to die from Yuri's homemade bioweapons? Stay tuned.

Stapleton, the intrepid New York City medical examiner, most recently appeared in Mr. Cook's Chromosome 6. Resourceful and unafraid of stepping on bureaucratic toes in his dogged pursuit of truth, he is without a doubt one of the most endearing characters in fiction. His basketball-playing neighbors, who often act as his personal rescue squad, are also delightful.

With a couple of twists at the end, Vector is one very cleverly plotted thriller. Perhaps it will also serve as a clarion call to alert the public to the dangers of bioterrorism.