From New York Times bestselling author Ben Mezrich, a fast-paced techno-thriller about a biological virus that spreads electronically.
In Boston, nine
lawyers on a conference call suddenly convulse with pain, turn chalk white, and
die. In Vermont, a young woman watching her favorite sitcom meets the same
grisly fate, as does a group of sewer workers in Washington, D.C. Whatever has
killed these people is spreading fast, and the task of eradicating it falls to
young virologist Samantha Craig and paramedic Nick Barnes, whose brilliant
surgical career was ruined by a crippling hand injury.
When Nick and
Samantha discover that the virus, named Reaper, is spread through TVs and PCs,
they realize that the information superhighway will become a killing field,
with tens of millions dead, unless they can root Reaper out.
Their search
employs a dazzling array of real-life wizardry, from Mylar body paint to
Stealth helicopters to CIA-bred swarms of insects. At the core of Reaper’s
madness, they find a suavely megalomaniacal, up-from-the-slums, high-tech
billionaire, an icily ingenious hacker, and a high-powered cabal that will do
anything to save the world from technology, even if that means annihilating the
world.
