Carriers

by Patrick Lynch

Book Overview

A team of American biological warfare experts travels to Indonesia to investigate a plague-like outbreak. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0425154882
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: Berkley
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 0.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.0" x 1.3" x 4.5"

Customer Reviews

compelling and addictive

Before even reading Richard Preston's THE HOT ZONE, I just had to get a hold of Patrick Lynch's CARRIERS. This scientific thriller, weaving love, fear, worries and hatred into the plot, kept me in constant suspense which made it an exciting fast-paced read. With an airborne epidemic "one hundred more times more contagious than Ebola" (USA Today), breaking out in the Indonesian rain forests, only a team of American Microbiological experts are sent to investigate its source and try to keep it under control haphazardly, but only corpses and infected natives, who die in a matter of hours, are discovered with no answers to how the core of this mysterious plague is being spread. Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone in search of a horrifying heart-racing, yet compelling read.

Compelling stuff

I read this book in what for me was record time, and couldn't believe when I was done that it was more than 400 pages long. The author drew me into the terrifying world of the 'BL4' virus quite expertly and kept me there until the last page. Part of his skill was to make me care about the characters, and keep up the surprises all the way through. A great read.

Chilling

I heard this book was great. I had high expectations and (to my surprise) they were thoroughly met. This is the scariest thriller of a bio/medical kind I've ever read, and I'd only hesitate to recommend it to people with weak hearts. I was gripped completely.

Terrifying in its implications

Patrick Lynch makes a stunning debut with 'Carriers'. Carriers sports a very complicated storyline (you will find it hard to summarize in under five pages) and huge cast of characters (one of the largest I've seen in a thriller) rather well. The plot, at its root, simply involves an epidemic disease spreading across the Indonesian island of Sumetra, as well as outbreaks in both Deleware and London. However, Carriers is really a character-driven story, especially for the first two-thirds or so. Fortunately, Lynch seems to have a knack for making very realistic, likeable (or unlikable) characters. Even the secondary characters, and there are a lot of them, are fully developed. You become attached to them, and if one happens to die or become injured, you'll probably experience a strong emotional response (sadness, unless you're a sadist), which is a sure sign of excellent characterization. The first third of Carriers is really a very long introduction. It was, however, my favorite part of the book, especially the Deleware outbreak. The suspense in Carriers sneaks up on you; the introduction may seem at first long and drawn out, but trust me, if you can read it for half an hour you'll realize that, no matter how hard you may try, you just can't put the book down. Another hour and your knuckles will be turning white, but still you will be unable to let go. The only real problem here is the huge cast of characters. There's a lot going on in the first hundred pages, and dozens of characters to remember. I often found myself flipping back twenty or thirty pages to find out who someone was. There's also a complicated storyline; this is handled well, but if you some how summon the ability to put the book for the night, you may find yourself lost in the morning when you try to pick up where you left off. Unless you have an excellent memory, unlike myself. It's a lot to deal with early in the book, but things soon calm down. ABout a third of the way into the novel, the second of the two major protagonists, Carmen Travis, is introduced (the other is Holly Becker). Things calm down quite a bit, character-wise, and the plot-line begins to take over. Over the course of the rest of the novel, an overly engrossing (and surprising) storyline is developed. There are dozens of sub-plots in Carriers, almost as many as there are characters. It is truly epic. But over the course of the last third of the novel, one of those seemingly rather unimportant subplots comes to the forefront. The plot becomes much deeper and more complex then one would ever guess it would be while reading the first part of Carriers. It is very well done; the introduction of the sub-plot is done subtley and without great fanfare, but it slowly evolves util it becomes dominating and completely engrosing. Just like the characters, the plotline of Carriers ends up in an entirely different location from the one it originally intended to go. The climax, which is unexpectedly violent, is quite

The Best BioSci Mystery read to date. A top-notch thriller!

Patrick Lynch's "Carriers" seduces unrelentingly with its incredible chapter by chapter cliffhanging style. It kept me up all night, literally unable to sleep until I finished it. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the precarious relationship we have with our primitive ecosystems or who is fascinated with that voracious, unseen, world conquering monster that is the virus. This is a truly frightening book, that brings home the personal nature of a pandemic event with just a hint as to its secret carefully dangled in the context of a brief encounter. Everyone I've shown this book to, after reading only a few pages has gone out and bought the paperback for themselves. I eagerly await Lynch's next foray into the cardiac wild. Doug Kennedy