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The Bug Hunter
Ken Davenport, author
NATURE ITSELF HAS BEEN TURNED INTO A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION.
A genetically engineered toxin races through America’s food supply as terrorists plot a new attack using a deadly virus spread by insect vectors.
AND ONLY ONE MAN CAN STOP IT.
The year is 2026, and Gabriel Marx and his wife Claire are living a quiet life in California’s Russian River Valley. An Iraq War veteran turned vintner with training in genomics, Gabriel has brought the latest in genetic engineering to Landmark Estates in an effort to help the winery fend off insect-based threats to their vines exacerbated by climate change.
One day a stream of black SUVs carrying Homeland Security Secretary Jason Witt shows up at the vineyard, and Gabriel is reluctantly recruited to help uncover a terrorist attack using genetically engineered insects to poison American agriculture.
Partnered with Department of Homeland Security Agent Lee Jensen, Gabriel is drawn into a complex web of rogue scientists with links to ISIS and Chechen terrorists, uncovering a plan to cripple the American economy while killing millions with a deadly virus.
Merging cutting-edge synthetic biology and international terrorism, THE BUG HUNTER is both thriller and cautionary tale of how advances in technology can be used to turn nature itself into a devastating weapon.
Reviews
In 2020, viticulturist and CIA recruit Gabriel Marx, the hero of this tense thriller from Davenport (The Two Gates), and Adnan Mishner, an American Egyptian entomologist, are in Afghanistan as part of a U.S. effort to “develop insect-borne pathogens to combat bioterrorism and to ultimately develop an offensive capability.” Their efforts bear fruit when they create genetically altered thrips, tiny insects that carry a virus fatal to poppy plants, which devastate the Taliban’s poppy fields. Six years later, Marx is working for a winery, but he’s pulled back into government work after Americans start dying from a mysterious new illness. CDC investigators ascertain that the victims all consumed orange juice made from a particular batch of fruit, and are horrified to discover that an altered Mediterranean fruit fly was used to infect the oranges with botulinum toxin. Marx is unaware that Mishner, who has become radicalized and is working with ISIS, is behind that bio-attack—and that worse ones are planned. Marx’s digging reveals an even greater threat to the nation’s food supply, and he works desperately with his allies in law-enforcement to avert disaster. Davenport keeps the science jargon-free and accessible. This nail-biter doesn’t pull any punches. (BookLife)
Amazon
A gripping biotech thriller!
As advances in CRISPR and synthetic biology are accelerating, terrifying scenarios like The Bug Hunter are inevitable. Davenport wraps this profound change in the relationship between human beings and nature into a nonstop rollercoaster of a thriller. It will suck you in and leave you scanning the headlines for real world corollaries.
