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The Plague Maker

by Tim Downs

Tim Downs' The Plague Maker is assuredly one of the most unnerving books I've read, and I read quite a few. In addition to superior writing, Mr. Downs has presented us with the truly horrifying possibility of biological warfare aimed directly at the United States, and with a pathogen that would not only spread but cause a great deal of pain before the death of a majority of our population. The Plague Maker is a stand-out, one-of-a-kind book; and even though I've not had the privilege of reading Tim Downs' prior work, I'd say that this novel must easily surpass anything he's written before. The Plague Maker carries you forward at an ever increasing pace, with indiscriminate killing, cold-blooded characters, and a cleverly conceived threat to national security that overshadows even destruction of the World Trade Center.

Special Agent Nathan Donovan of the FBI is combating both anger and fear over the death of his son, who died of cancer at a young age. Instead of facing his boy's inevitable death and assisting at the last moments with loving support, he chose to focus his anger in the job, staying apart from his son's sickness and eventually causing a divorce from his other love, the wife and mother. Now he's involved in a case where fleas were transported to an art gallery in a Babylonian pottery jar.

His ex-wife, Dr. Macy Monroe, political science and international relations expert from Columbia University is inadvertently thrown into an investigation with Nathan on counterterrorism, and a man named Li is the single person to recognize the love still pulsing between them. Li also knows the reason behind the fleas and the threat to the U.S. they represent.

Two ships meet in the mid-Atlantic; one carrying inoffensive cargo destined for South America, the other lethal cargo for Manhattan. In mid-ocean, outside the range of any supposed witnesses, they exchange identities. Now it's up to Nathan and Macy to stop the newly custom-costumed ship from entering the New York harbor. To do that, Nathan must pose as a harbor master and guide the ship in – and to stop it before it reaches anywhere near its destination.

The denouement of this hair-raising story comes only after the murder of several more innocent people, and Mr. Downs leaves us to imagine the final fate of the two major protagonists – however reunited at last. Tim Downs belies his reputation as a writer for the Christian faith market here, since The Plague Maker decidedly goes beyond any proselytizing and lands directly in the murder-mystery field; appropriate for those of any faith. Mr. Li seems to be the only character with any direct ties to Christianity. If it was Tim Downs intention to create that leap into a wider and perhaps more lucrative market, he has certainly done so. I can easily recommend The Plague Maker to all murder-mystery fans as a fine example of contemporary thriller.

Alan Paul Curtis

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