Snakehead

Peter May's SNAKEHEAD provides the fourth China thriller and returns American pathologist Margaret Campbell back on home soil, facing a truck load of dead Chinese and a Beijing detective who is to work with her to find how his fellow countrymen died. A fine thriller evolves.

In this frightening scenario, the world is confronted with an act of bio-terror that could surpass the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 or the Black Plague during the Middle Ages. It brings back Dr. Margaret Campbell and Beijing detective Li Yan in the fourth of Peter May's China Thrillers in which they have been teamed as lovers as well as to solve mysteries. This time, they are in the United States: Margaret as the medical examiner in Houston and Li Yan as a liaison officer in the Chinese embassy in Washington. They are reunited as part of a task force put together when illegal Chinese immigrants are found to have been inoculated with an unknown virus. The immigrants were found suffocated in a truck near the Mexican border. In a race against time, Margaret and Li Yan, along with other members of the task force, endeavor to identify the virus and how it could be activated to potentially infect millions with unbelievable consequences. At the same time, the two have to deal with their own relationship and come to terms with the impediments. Over-all, it is a provocative story, keeping the reader on the edge of his/her seat. Recommended.

American pathologist Margaret Campbell left behind her beloved Li Yan in Beijing to come home to Texas where she has become Chief Medical Examiner of Harris County; she never expected to see him again. However, the former Beijing police detective has been reassigned to work at the Chinese embassy in Washington though he has no plans to look up the woman who left him. When he is sent to work with American authorities investigating the deaths of Chinese citizens in Walker County in Southern Texas, Li and Margaret, on loan to the nearby county, are stunned as both are involved in the inquiry into the suffocation deaths inside a truck's sealed refrigeration unit. As they work together, the attraction remains hotter than the sun, but both knows first they must uncover the Snakehead mastermind behind human smuggling. However, the autopsy reveals they did not die from suffocation; they were injected with a form of the Spanish flu virus which killed millions in 1918 and potentially threatens pandemic billions worldwide now that an offshoot has returned. The fourth Campbell-Yan police procedural (see THE FOURTH SACRIFICE, FIREMAKER and THE KILLING ROOM) switches the location from China to Texas, but maintains the high quality as Li though several thousand miles from his Communist home still must be cognizant of the rulers. The story line focuses on a real threat based on a plausible biological premise of using the deadly 1918 Spanish flu virus to cause a pandemic. Adding to the feel of this could happen is the dead illegal immigrants, another timely topic in spite of seemingly falling off the map when Tancredo's; run ended. Whether it is France (home of the Macleod investigative thrillers (see EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE, THE CRITIC and BLACKLIGHT BLUE), China or the United States, Peter May always provides readers with an excellent mystery. Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Carol Hoyer, PhD, for Reader Views (11/08) The author Peter May has written a book about human cargo that is contaminated with an unknown virus. This is terrorism at its greatest. Can it really happen? The book opens with the local sheriff relieving himself in the bushes after a long day, when he sees a large truck parked in the parking lot of a local restaurant that isn't due to open for hours. As he investigates he finds a truckload of Chinese immigrants, all dead. Snakehead is a term for people who smuggle illegal Chinese immigrants all over the world. With the high numbers of immigrants and the trial of getting into the United States, no wonder so many die. The medical examiner, Margaret Campbell, is called in. This is nothing new to her. Having just arrived from China, she knows transporting illegal immigrants is on the rise. What she doesn't know is what caused all their deaths. Her first thought is the ventilation system was closed, but on closer inspection she notices that all of the dead have an injection site on their bodies. Knowing this is bigger than anything she has ever worked on, she has the proper authorities called in, with one of them being her former lover in China, Li Yan. Their on-again, off-again relationship is tenuous at the most. Neither thought they would run into each other again. Time is running out. How many illegal Chinese have been vaccinated with this virus and what causes it to become active? Through a gripping account of how the virus started and what it's potential effect could be, Peter May gives us all something to think about in this book, "Snakehead." This could happen.

Fourth in the author's China Thriller series to be published by this press. Make no mistake this is one scary and thrilling book. So thrilling, in fact I had the sense toward the end of being carried just a bit over the top. The novel brings back two of May's most endearing characters, forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell, American and Beijing detective, Li Yan. But they are no longer in China. Campbell is now the county medical examiner based in Houston, Texas, and Li Yang is learning about and dealing with America's multiple and complex law enforcement agencies as a member of the Chinese Embassy staff in Washington, D.C. Until a major tragedy brings them together, Campbell is not even aware that they are again in the same country although still thousands of miles physically and culturally apart. The tragedy that brings these two together are the deaths of scores of illegal Chinese immigrants being smuggled to the United State via the same pipeline and organization which smuggles drugs from South America to the U.S. In this incident, the dead are found in a refrigerated truck abandoned in Texas. Those deaths appear to be accidental until it is discovered the bodies have all be injected with a dangerous virus that has no known antidote. Now the race is on to determine what the virus is, who is behind the multi-million dollar smuggling operation, the Snakehead of the title, and Li Yan and Margaret must try to set aside their own emotional difficulties in order to help literally, save the nation from a devastating plague. The pace is fast, the writing always to the point, the characters are genuine in their language and their emotions, and most worrisome of all, the science is real. This is a novel with the potential to scare the pants off you. It's timely, international in scope, a whirlwind of a thriller.