THE BLOOD ARTISTS by Chuck Hogan

 Re-finished Su 1/16/22

This is an ancient paperback that I originally finished on Mo 9/8/03 "in the whirlpool at Mackinaw City, Michigan". I don't remember this at all. 

My original note said 'Good idea, badly executed' and I think this is rather harsh because I liked the book the second time around. I think it was because there was not a single word about people in the novel that objected to the handling of their epidemic. 

The following phrase is the only thing on the front cover:

"EVERYTHING THAT BEGINS, BEGINS WITH BLOOD"

From the book's page at Good Reads:

"Chuck Hogan's new thriller opens as Drs. Stephen Pearse and Peter Maryk are summoned deep into the rain forests of the Congo, where a deadly virus -- set free from a centuries-old uranium cave -- has decimated a mining camp. Desperate, they bomb the area, resealing the cave containing the incurable disease. But two years later, it reappears, devastating the small New England town of Plainville. In the next few years, other isolated incidents are also ruthlessly silenced by Maryk, now head of the Bureau for Disease Control's (BDC) Special Pathogens Section. He and Pearse, now director of the BDC, have become bitter enemies, divided by opposing scientific philosophies. Still, as the virus continues to elude any vaccine with a disturbingly human cunning the men seek not only to stop it but to figure out how it came from Africa. Their battle with "Plainville" intensifies as it becomes clear that the virus has acquired a face, having taken over a human host. And in particular, this toxic creature pursues one brave young woman whose blood, immune to the virus, is the serum of life in the face of a viral death. Pearse and Maryk keep her close and protected, while formulating a plan to get to the killer first."

The interesting element of the novel is that the virus 'merges' with a human so that the virus is now connected to a human brain- A virus with human intelligence. It sounds hokey, but it worked (kind of).

This would make a nice 'beach' or 'airport' read. 

I would read more by this author.