Vector, by Robin Cook

Medical thrillers are among my favorites. I particularly liked Vector because it featured two characters, Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton, that have been in some of Cook's other novels. Both are medical examiners that tend to go above and beyond the call of duty in investigating suspicious deaths. Some of their latest cases suggest biological warfare.

It begins when Jack conducts an autopsy on the body of a former rug merchant. He determines that the man died of anthrax. When he learns of the man's profession, he figures that the he might have contracted it through anthrax spores on some of the rugs he sold, since some were furs and hides imported from countries where the animal form of anthrax is a problem. So he figures the mystery is probably solved, but something doesn't quite feel right. Little does he know of the impending danger to thousands of people.

Yuri is a taxi driver who worked in a biotechnology lab in the USSR before the breakup of the Soviet Empire. He dislikes America and its government and particularly hates Jewish people. He gets involved with a skinhead militia called the People's Aryan Army, led by two men he considers friends, Curt and Steve. Curt and Steve don't necessarily trust people of Russian descent, but they befriend Yuri because of his anti-semitism, his hatred of the US government, and the fact that he has the knowledge to build a bioweapon of mass destruction. Yuri sets up a lab in his basement and begins growing anthrax and botulinum toxin.

On a personal level, Laurie dashes the hopes of two would-be suitors, Jack and Lou, a police detective, when she introduces them to her new boyfriend. Neither Lou nor Jack much care for Laurie's new flame, jealousy perhaps accounting for some of their dislike. However, it doesn't take long for Lou to uncover some very disturbing information about him.

Meanwhile, Jack gets another baffling case. It isn't a case that he is assigned to autopsy, but rather a case that a friend has asked him to look into. The friend's sister has just died, and he is convinced her husband killed her, though her doctors did not suspect foul play. Jack has to move fast and bend some rules to get some fluid and skin cells to test. He also discovers that part of the reason the doctors had not suspected foul play was that her husband had lied about some of her medical history. Initial lab results did not suggest anything out of the ordinary. Jack discusses the case with Laurie, who suggests botulism. Jack is astonished when lab tests confirm this.

The question is whether Laurie and Jack can figure out what is going on in time to prevent many more deaths.

This is a really interesting book, but pretty scary to think about, especially since much of what is said about bioweapons in this book is based in fact.