I bought this hardback at the library book sale on Sa 6/10/17 and finished the first time on Tu 12/19/17.
Quotation at the beginning of the book:
"True evil has a face you know and a voice you trust"- Anonymous
PREMISE:
Dr. Eldon Tarver- the pathological medical researcher.
Andrew Rusk is the corrupt lawyer
A corrupt divorce lawyer and a truly evil science researcher collaborate to offer a service to very rich people who stand to lose everything in a divorce. They can kill a spouse and disguise the death to appear to be cancer. The virus is slow acting and can take up to eighteen months from exposure to death.
It's a fact that researchers are noticing that many cancers really are caused by viruses, so there is a degree of truth in the story line.
A section of the novel demonstrates how this virus model can be weaponized and used for the military. Armies could invade an area and spread the virus and destroy completely a country's infrastructure without damaging a single building. And, in this scenario the 'exposure to death' can be as long as five years.
Alex Morse is an FBI agent who has lost credibility. She was shot in the face with a shotgun during a hostage situation and her face is deeply scarred. She suspects that her dead sister was killed by this virus.
Chris Sheppard is a doctor who is being set up for the virus by his wife.
From the book's page at Amazon:
"A Southern doctor is pulled into a terrifying ring of murderous secrets in this powerhouse thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of the Penn Cage series.
Dr. Chris Shepard has never seen his new patient before. But the attractive young woman with the scarred face knows him all too well. An FBI agent working undercover, Alex Morse has come to Dr. Shepard's office in Natchez, Mississippi, to unmask a killer. A local divorce attorney has a cluster of clients whose spouses have all died under mysterious circumstances. Agent Morse's own brother-in-law was one of those clients, and now her beloved sister is dead. Then comes Morse's bombshell: Dr. Shepard's own beautiful wife consulted this lawyer one week ago, a visit Shepard knew nothing about. Will he help Alex Morse catch a killer? Or is he the next one to fall victim to a deadly trap of sex, lies, and murder?"
About the author at Amazon:
"Greg Iles was born in 1960 in Germany, where his father ran the US Embassy medical clinic during the height of the Cold War. After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1983, he performed for several years with the rock band Frankly Scarlet and is a member of the lit-rock group The Rock Bottom Remainders. His first novel, Spandau Phoenix, a thriller about Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess, was published in 1993 and became a New York Times bestseller. Iles went on to write numerous bestselling novels including Third Degree, True Evil, Turning Angel, Blood Memory, The Footprints of God, the Natchez Burning trilogy, and 24 Hours (released by Sony Pictures as Trapped, with full screenwriting credit for Iles). He lives in Natchez, Mississippi."
From a reader's post at Amazon:
"...committing the perfect murder. It also explores a proposition that has long interested me as a biochemist and cell biologist. A trained molecular biologist who is also a psychopath could become a formidable murderer and terrorist, particularly if he had access to abundant resources. Iles pushes this theme further by having the individual serve with the Army Biological Warfare Program, then cooperate with a divorce lawyer who plots solutions to unhappy marriages (unsolvable murders). I like the fact that Iles has done considerable homework and sticks to the real concepts of molecular biology and virology in describing the basic science of his central proposition for his killer, rather than creating “science facts” to advance his plot, as some other novelists have."
I've read several novels by Greg Iles and I'd read anything that he wrote.
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