This is a very good book. It is well written and pretty exciting. It is, once again, not military science fiction, which is what I wanted to read and was told that it fell in that category! I am getting tired of authors claiming their books fit the military science fiction genre when they clearly do not.
Still, this is a book worth reading. If you like suspense thrillers with a lot of espionage, intrigue, and world threatening scare, then this is the perfect book for you. And, it is written by someone that apparently walks-the-walk, a combat veterinarian. It happens in Africa, initially. A young Army veterinarian in on educational leave from the military working on his PHD. He studies viral infections in animals and has this chance to study the Silverback Gorillas located in the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This place is full of poachers and illegal mining activity and most of the men found here are young and armed. They form one fighting faction or another and they are all out to get one thing, money.
Cole McBride is our Army Veterinarian. He’s a pretty well developed character, although young as are most military people. He’s initially accompanied by very capable Virunga Park Rangers as they forage deeper into the jungle to find the Mountain Gorillas which had been so famously documented in several movies. Their reason for this particular trip was due to reports about dead gorillas. They needed to find out if the reports were true and what they killed them. So off they go in a Eurocopter into a part of the jungle that was known to be thick with rebels shooting at just about anything that dared come into their territory.
So, they find the gorillas and determine that they did die from a virus called monkeypox. It is a disease usually contained in monkeys and primates and shows up in humans in a different form called smallpox! Along the way in the story, they find out that this monkey pox version has been genetically engineered by someone to make it smallpox and very lethal. Now they have to find where it’s going to show up next.
Pretty thrilling story. There is a lot of scientific stuff involved along with love angles, information about military working dogs and terrorist groups. Just about all the bad guys you’d expect in todays international thriller. The writing was easy to read and the editing was just great; no missing words or weird sentences.
I would recommend reading this book if nothing more than showing support for the author and his service to our country. He’s doing his part, now you do yours.