The Cobra Event: A Novel

I loved the Hot Zone. Tight writing, non fiction, with a scary message. I've heard the author speak, at the NIH, and was impressed. Finally decided to read The Cobra Event - a quick read, easy to follow, with what felt like facts interspersed - frightening ones, if true. But the writing was so stilted - a cascade of short declarative sentences that really started annoying me early in the book and bothered me the whole way through. Disappointing.

Though I definitely do not want to experience the plot in this book in real life, I enjoyed reading it while feeling like I learned a lot of what the author hoped to convey to his audience. Strong writing and character development kept me turning the pages till I realized it was over.

I like the story The Cobra Event possibly because I'm familiar with epidemiology and microbiology. the book contains a lot of science and the story line is plausible. Would the main character have the opportunity to get involved with the police work, I seriously doubt it. I would strongly recommend reading the book for the science and the potential bioterrorism aspects. I have several of this author's books, so I highly recommend him.

Frighteningly real. Will haunt you for a long time afterward. In fact-checking many events, research is "spot on". Exploring the internet and clicking on wikipedia re the subject matter I saw images I wish I had never seen, as those images will be seared into your brain and you'll see why biological warfare is far worse than a nuclear option. Author's previous book "The Hot Zone" was a true story and I heard that it may be a mini-series sometime in the future on the FOX network (some 20 years after the book was published).

I love medical suspense novels. Really good plot, but I'll take off one star for the writing. Richard Preston's writing style is very bland. It kinda reads like this:

"She went to the store. She saw this guy. She then went back home."

The wording just didn't have much flow. If it wasn't for such an engaging plot, I would have been disappointed. Overall, a good read though in my opinion.

This book is absolute dreck. The use of tense wavers from paragraph to paragraph, sentence to sentence. Punctuation is missing in much of the rambling dialogue. Oh, did I mention rambling dialogue? Not only is it cliche, but characters lack any kind of distinct voice. There are huge chunks of the book that seem to be lifted from a nonfiction essay on biological warfare. Interesting on their own, but it's like reading a comic book spliced with a text book. Two lines of dialogue, two pages of biology 101.

This book was immensely dissatisfying and a waste of my money.

And brother of Douglas Preston, who wrote the equally scary "The Relic".

It's not important if the science behind this book is right or wrong, it's the way it's written. This is how a biological attack would look.

The graphic descriptions of grisly deaths are too realistic. Starting with minor symptoms, it gets bad quick. Nobody is spared: bums, schoolchildren, homeless people living in subways. There are two guys working for CDC, one a seasoned vet, and this novel goes step by step with great detail and accuracy.

Some of the activity takes place in long forgotten subway tunnels, in a race to prevent this agent from being released into the general population. The person who is making this stuff is a real sicko. this tale is written "slow burn", a lot of detail is given until we are brought to a gripping and realistic denouement.

This book scared a President, who acted on it to put up safeguards to prevent this fictional book from becoming fact.

When Bill Clinton mentioned this book in his memoir, I added it to my wish list. Then, it took me several years to get around to reading it. As others have said, this book is a real page turner. Perhaps what I most appreciate about the book is the scientific intelligence with which it is crafted.

The outbreak begins with a high school girl's violent death. But when a few others die similar deaths, it catches the attention of the Center for Disease Control. Dr. Alice Austen, our heroine, begins to investigated the path of the virus. With a lot of luck, investigators discovers the common link of a cobra shaped box from a middle eastern country. The question becomes whether investigators are looking at a lone wolf or a dangerous terrorist organization.

Richard Preston demonstrates command of the written word as well as science in "The Cobra Event". The author has created in me an interest in his works of fiction and nonfiction.

This is a bio weapon thriller. A biological agent is found in the body of an Upper East Side high school student. A CDC doctor is brought to New York to ascertain a public health risk and discovers a bio weapon instead. This brings the FBI into the case.

The person responsible for unleashing the bio weapon is amping up his activity and is obviously planning something much bigger in scope. The hunt is on to locate him. The virus is called COBRA. and the team must find a way to stop this bio-terrorist before COBRA destroys New York and then spreads beyond it. There is also a romance storyline that doesn't quite fit between an FBI agent-scientist and a CDC doctor. Preston adds it into the story in a number of paragraphs and then does nothing with it. I think he thought it was a nice idea but he writes science, not romance, and didn't know how to develop that kind of side story.

My bigger criticism though is that there are pages and pages of pure science in this fiction book and if you are not well educated in science (and I am not) it is slow, difficult reading and not really necessary for reading a thriller novel. These pages are interspersed throughout the book as a whole and it is as if someone snuck a science textbook into a novel. This is way beyond the science which Michael Crichton and Carl Sagan put into their novels. It is the most I have ever seen inserted into a novel. I think this should have been put in the back of the book as an appendix for those who have the ability to read and understand it.

The deaths are hideous as the bioweapon is made up of smallpox and other strains including a syndrome which has people eat themselves, starting with their lips, noses and fingers. That material is all fascinating as is the crime solving and disease solving as practiced by the CDC and the FBI. A really good editor could have helped this book enormously. As it is, it is good but it could have been great.

Visit my blog with link given on my profile page here or use this phonetically given URL (livingasseniors dot blogspot dot com). Friday's entry will always be weekend entertainment recs from my 5 star the store reviews in film, tv, books and music. These are very heavy on buried treasures and hidden gems. My blogspot is published on Monday, Wednesday & Friday.

It is apparent the author is better at writing non-fiction. His others works of non-fiction on similar topics have been received well, but this novel is average when judged in the context of entertainment thrillers. This novel has unnecessarily detailed narratives around the science and history of bio-terrorism, which not only adds bulk to the novel, but frustratingly diverts the attention of the reader from the flow of the story. Suddenly, paragraphs start reading like a non-fictional account, which, though by themselves are informative, but not needed and distracting for a fiction-thriller.

I was recommended this novel as a ecological-thriller, which it certainly is not. At best, it is a medical-techno thriller. The description of a post-mortem in one of the initial chapters is perhaps the most grotesque, but detailed and informative, description I have ever read! The last 50 pages or so are very fast paced. The plot is intriguing, but overall predictable in terms of the likely ending. I recommend the works of the British author Ken McClure if you are interested in reading quality medical thrillers.

I'm fascinated by virology and love reading stories like Cobra Event. What I found frustrating is the switch back and forth from overly technical things that weren't explained very well, to passages that seemed almost condescending to the reader (eg. one passage says something akin to "they next had to tackle the pelvic organs. Those are the organs contained within the pelvic bones"). Well duh. Another thing that was hard to believe were some of the biosafety practices listed in the book - bleach poured into a body bag to disinfect a contaminated body - wouldn't that grossly affect the upcoming autopsy? And, personnel running around swabbing contaminated things and then stuffing the swab in a pocket protector? And entering hot zones without suiting up? And staff exposed to contagions yet allowed to mingle with other staff and the public? These just don't seem to make sense. If this is the way Level 3 and 4 labs are staffed in our world, we'd all be dead by now.

Still, even with the inconsistencies, it was a fascinating read to me. I found myself, as I worked my way through the book, skimming over the overly technical bits (I don't think I missed much storyline-wise), getting a bit angry at the condescending bits (but eventually getting over it) and still enjoying the story.

It's a good thing this book is fiction. Just don't expect the science in it to be totally realistic.

I loved this book for two reasons. The first being the riveting plot. This book dares you to put it down (and then try to sleep at night). The ride, the details, the pacing. This book is a cut above.

My second reason is a bit of thumbing my nose at the publishing industry. This book revels in having NOTHING that the publishing industry demands today. Everything MUST be character driven! Aaaack, that one drives me crazy. Pages and pages of introspection while the story stands still. Preston does nothing of this! His characters are not the focus of the story, and they aren't terribly well developed. Ironically, this makes them much more believable than the standard novel character. I somehow don't think that Richard Preston has sheets and sheets of character outlines with details such as how Tom Cope likes his corn flakes! Preston does more telling than showing, and I wish to thank him for it! All these books filled with contrived ways of getting information across to the reader and past an editor who is just dying to mark something as "telling" rather than "showing." No navel gazing! Thank you Mr. Preston for delivering a book where the story doesn't have to go on pause for twenty pages of introspection every chapter! "Why am I here, does she feel the same way about me as I feel about her?" Baah!

Richard Preston puts the "thrill" in "thriller"!

Richard Preston, in this sequel of sorts to The Hot Zone, has outdone himself. The Hot Zone, which dealt with the deadly disease Ebola, and how close we came to having Ebola strike the U.S. in the form of Ebola Reston (Reston, Virginia), was a near perfect mix of fact and fiction. Now, with The Cobra Event, dealing with biological warfare, Preston has outdone himself again. The book starts off with a death of mind-numbing brutality, caused by an unknown disease. Alice Austen, an epidemiologist from the Centers of Disease Control is sent to investigate. The implications of this new agent, a biological weapon, result in federal agencies scrambling to contain it, and the man (who calls himself Archimedes) spreading it. O.K., in all truth, the fiction of this novel is really a slightly predictable mystery thriller. But that, of course, isn't the draw of the novel. Preston has researched his material extensively, and the result is a highly-enjoyable, fascinating story. Preston complements his storyline with three sections entitled "Invisible History", which take a detour from the plot to explain the real life facts of the events taking place. These sections are well-written and informative. Also, to Preston's credit, he has resolved his problems in placing the climax in this novel. In The Hot Zone Preston climaxed in spectacular format and then let the book slide for entirely too long. In this novel, he climaxes and then ties up loose ends quickly and efficiently. One of Preston's best works, this receives a 9 out of 10 on the Dominion scale. If you liked The Hot Zone you'll love this book!

After having read Preston's frightening 'The Hot Zone' I felt that he could only scare me witless if he ever tried a fictional story along similar lines...and 'The Cobra Event' is exactly that: very frightening. Could it happen? It sure seems like it could, which makes it even more horrific. It should be no surprise that Richard Preston has it within himself the ability to write a hum-dinger of a yarn because his brother is Douglas Preston, one-half of the duo that gave us 'Relic', 'Thunderhead' and 'The Ice Limit' (among other great thrillers). Richard takes us on a journey that is both scary and entertaining as well. In several instances the story made me feel as though I were witness to something truly horrible, as though I should turn away but couldn't.
In one respect we've got a straight 'Bio-Thriller' of the 1st order...in another vein (sorry) we've got a classic 'whodunnit'. Preston combines the two seamlessly and the tension mounts from beginning to its satisfying climax. What more can I say? I enjoyed 'The Cobra Event' VERY MUCH. I have to give a warning though: some of the scenes described in the story are every bit as horrific as can be in written form. A few almost made me gag. The detail is stunning, realistic and written so well you feel as though you are really THERE...all that was missing was the smell (for which I was profoundly thankful they COULDN'T re-create). This is a thriller as good as most out there, and maybe even more so because the stuff in THIS book isn't just fantasy, it COULD ACTUALLY HAPPEN. I pray it doesn't.

The Cobra Event exhibits many facets of a great story. The characters, particulary the heroine, are well-rounded and humanistically detailed. The plot unfolds with an energy I wish more authors would consider. The language throughout the book resounds with intelligence and insight. Perhaps the most attractive detail in the book centers around the science the narrator lays out for us; strong forensics and biology contribute a credibilty, or believabilty to the story that was invaluable. Had these aspects not been present, the story would have undoubtedly fallen apart.
As it stands, the finished product failed to succeed despite its relatively strong parts; fatal flaws within characterization and plot tore it apart. In certain characters we see them behaving contradictorily to what pages and pages of text had set them up to be; a laboratory technician made into a criminal arresting hero, an experienced virologist failing to take fundamental safety measures, an obssessive-compulsive suddenly forgetting to follow the steps he had previously followed for months. And this discongruity of characterization necessarily radiated out into the plot, leading to downright puzzling and awkward denouements.
The novel was quite fun to read (not hard on the ol' brain), but to give it too much credit would be out of line. It entertained but it did not satisfy.
I would recommend The Cobra Event to fans of thrillers and medical mysteries who are looking for a light read as well as anyone posessing that apocalyptic bent.
Thank you.
R. Petalver

The Cobra Event is fiction, but as other reviewers have said, entirely plausible. Richard Preston writes with great authority on the topic of bioterrorism, yet he also knows how to tell a good story, and that's always important to me because I read for pleasure as much as for information.

The reason that this novel is entirely believable is that Preston is able to inbue his characters with genuine humanity and likability. From the first page, when lovely young Kate is infected, the characters and the plot line grabbed me. After that, I read like a demon, and found myself trying to steal time from other activities just to get to "a good stopping place." And, of course, there is no really good stopping place because with a plot this captivating all you want to do is read until the end. And then, when the end is reached, you feel let down because there is no more to read!

[One word to the squeamish -- the autopsy scenes are grisly and occur more than once, so if you can't take CSI-style blood and guts, this book may not be for you.]

But for me, this novel is 5 stars all the way. Great for airplane or vacation reading too, and much better than the usual, ho-hum paperback about serial killers. Now I've got to go out and pick up The Hot Zone.

Richard Preston takes us on the nightmare ride that the entire human race will have to encounter in the very near future, for as we can see it really is a struggle for the rightious to convince the global community that there really are individuals out there that are capiable of destroying the human race and not care in the slightest bit for their actions. And it only takes a freely avaiable to the public virus, an averagly intellegent person with a grudge and a well thought out plan to do it.
The start begins with a young school girl who suddenly takes ill and in a short time dies in a rather violently spectacular fashion. Accross town a homeless man also dies in the same spectacular fashion.
A quick jump back in time shows a past that America has every right to be ashamed of - the testing of biological weapons that are so deadly even Richard Nixon himself band their use. Naturally the Russians who have a "fishing trawler" working near the test site obtains a sample of what will eventually become the most potant and deadly virus ever made.
It soon ends up in Iraq and Saddam's hands...
However the Centre of Disease Control sends one of it's investigators to see if there is a connection to these horrible deaths. It is the job of Alice Austen to get to the bottom of this outbreak, and soon she and a handful of others discover and uncover the smoking gun that will leave the future of mankind as well as the animal kingdom on the cliff-edge of oblivion.
Along the way they will discover how dangerous and potent this virus can be. Chilling is really not the word to describe it, Heart Stoppingly Frightening is, because it is real.
The book it's self is an easy read and flows well even if you have to put it down to take a breath (and you'll be alot more scared about doing that after).
Five scary stars.

As he did in `The Hot Zone', Richard Preston tackles a killer virus - this time fictionally. `The Cobra Event' is a great medical thriller that intersperses facts (the Iraqi, Russian, and US bioweapons experiments) with fiction: a seemingly random list of victims begins appearing in New York City whose simple colds liquefy their brains. Alice Austen, with the CDC, is sent to investigate the mysterious death of a teenager in New York City; an autopsy reveals blood-filled blisters, golden irises, and a brain that has literally turned to mush. The next case, a homeless man, has no logical connection to the first victim, but when one of the morgue doctors becomes ill, the FBI is called in, leading to a full-scale, multi-agency search for answers. The investigators discover that the illness is not random: someone has manufactured a virus that contains material found in butterflies, modified with other elements to be easily communicated to humans. In this day and age, the fear of bioweapons makes this a pertinent read, as do Preston's insertions of information on mobile bioreactors in Iraq, secret labs in the Soviet Union testing biological bombs, and the US tests at Johnston Atoll in the late 1960s. When the perpetrator is discovered, his motivation is known only to the reader; the other characters only find that he himself has been exposed to the virus as he attempts to detonate homemade devices in the NY subway. Preston keeps the action going well, although a hint at romance between Austen and an FBI agent seems like an afterthought that isn't needed for the characters or the plot. Worth reading.

Knowing it is fiction allows me to sleep at night, but knowing that Preston's story is so closely based on fact scares the hell out of me. The idea that a radical terrorist who believes that humans are a blight on the Earth could somehow obtain a bioweapon like Cobra is dripping with believability. There ARE people like that in the world. There are undoubtedly bioweapons not dissimilar to Cobra. For all we know this could already have happened, or may happen tomorrow or be happening as we read this. I read the book over a weekend, I had a very difficult time putting it down. When I did put it down, it was to reflect upon events in the book and wonder. I have always believed that the best fiction is fiction that is based on the truth and real events. I just wonder how long it will be before Prestons story will be considered "prophetic". Like the FBI guy said in the book, "you will see this during your career". My guess is sooner or later, it will happen much like Preston describes. I can only hope that there are people like Alice Austin and Will Hopkins to bail us out. Excellent read. Don't miss it.

The strength of Richard Preston's THE COBRA EVENT lies with how informative it is: it's obvious Preston did his research very thoroughly. One learns how the CDC in Atlanta and the Federal authorities might deal with such a bio-terrorist situation.
*SPOILERS BELOW*
From a storytelling perspective, the books starts off very well. But by the last third I felt the narrative didn't live up to what was setup in the first two thirds of the book. I guess I was hoping for somethiing much more horrific and on a massive scale. Also the section where the characters were chasing the villian through the subway system was just tiring and cliched.
But the major strength of this book lies in its implications: the most horrible weapon won't fall from the sky. It'll be spread silently without anyone knowing about it. That's reason enough to read this book. One can only imagine how former President Clinton reacted to this book (it's rumored he started a special White House commission after reading it).
Recommended for folks into thrillers with an international bent as well.
FYI: Ehren Kruger, screenwriter of ARLINGTON ROAD, adpated this into a screenplay -- another reason why I read this. Don't know what happened with it -- probably stuck Development Hell in Hollywood.

When a seventeen-year-old girl dies a horrifyingly grotesque death on her way to school, authorities are baffled. When a homeless man dies in a similarly terrible way, Dr. Alice Austen of the CDC takes an interest. When a third victim is discovered, the case becomes an official epidemic investigation. Dr. Austen teams up with the FBI and initiates a full-court press, hoping to find the cause for these frightening deaths.

What she finds turns out to be a terrorist attack. Someone in New York City is preparing for an artificial outbreak of one of the most lethal and easily communicable diseases the world has ever seen: a genetically modified version of the common cold virus combined with the small-pox virus and a rare and bizarre (and real) disease that turns afflicted persons into self-cannibals. Victims die within minutes of displaying symptoms, but they can be contagious for days beforehand. And even after death, their bodies remain contagious until cremated. As more people around the city turn up dead, the stakes rise for Austen. And when members of her own medical team start dying of the disease, she knows time is running out.

Now Austen and the FBI are in a race against time, trying to find and stop the terrorist responsible for the deaths before he unleashes the disease upon the city at large. What starts as a medical investigation turns into a manhunt and thereafter into a stakeout and finally an all-out pursuit through the dark underground of the New York subway system.

The book certainly holds one's attention, though much of the intrigue is based not on the plot but on the disgusting accounts of the victims' deaths. The death scenes are incredibly graphic and highly disturbing.

The author writes in a rather pedantic manner, and much of the narrative comes across more like a lecture than a story. Nevertheless, Preston is able to generate a fair amount of suspense in his action scenes. The chase through the subway tunnels bears an interesting resemblance to certain aspects of Reliquary, written by the author's brother (Douglas Preston, with Lincoln Child), which makes me wonder if perhaps he used some of the same research done for that book.

As with other terrorism-related books written prior to 9/11, the terrorist's motive is not particularly believable in today's world (Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six is similarly afflicted).

The book was obviously painstakingly researched. Preston has an excellent grasp of medical horrors. The bulk of the research done for this book was in the history of bioweapons manufacturing. Preston presents the astonishing and almost unbelievable (but all factual) history of biological weapons in a number of "aside" sections throughout the book (called the "Hidden History"). His research, in fact, was so convincing that then-president Bill Clinton ordered a plausibility investigation after reading this book. It's definitely scary stuff.

The book is quite simply too gross to recommend. However, the nonfiction information presented in the story is worth being aware of, particularly in light of the very real possibility of a bioterrorist attack in today's world.

Richard Preston's novel Cobra Event reads just like his nonfiction books on biological nasties, the Hot Zone and Demon in the Freezer--making it one of the most frightening things you will ever read, particularly if you've read either of those books as the similarities make the Cobra Event seem more like a nonfictional account than a novel.
The novel's story centers around a terrorist's creation and usage of "brain pox," a deadly disease derived from smallpox that infects victims' brains like encephalitis--combining the rapid and easy spread of the former with the deadly neurological effects of the latter in a horrifying biological weapon.
The characters and events laid out are so plausible that one must frequently remind oneself that the novel is indeed fictional, particularly in the historical and pseudo-historical accounts serving as background for the main story. Preston creates a believable team of investigators who must track down the terrorist behind the attacks--named by the FBI "the Cobra Event" due to their method of delivery. Although the motivations and character of the terrorist himself are somewhat flatter, overall the story could easily be featured not in a novel but on newspaper front pages.
Former President Clinton read the book and reportedly was both so fascinated and frightened that he began taking seriously the threats of biological terrorism not only from large, well-funded state labs like those of the former Soviet Union and North Koreans but also the lone, rogue terrorist, a very real threat considering the relative simplicity of creating terrible biological weapons as was demonstrated so recently by the anthrax attacks after 9/11.
Read this novel--it is a fast-paced page turner that will drive you to burn the midnight oil in finishing it--but one that will also leave you terrified as to the very real possibility of biological terrorism.

Somebody told the author he could sell more books by getting his work published as an Info-Thriller, than as a Current Issues piece.
The recipe for success with info-thrillers is: information disguised as a story, high-tech gadgets, and sex. This is what the canny author of many factual Current Issues books did. He re-spun what he knows how to do (I recommend "American Steel") into a novel. However, I learned more about: How-to-Cook-a-Bio-Weapon, the Geo-politics and history of biological warfare, FBI police procedures, and epidemiology than "mans inhumanity to man" i.e. there was really no story, or sex either.
If you want to learn about epidemiology and bio-war in a "Austin and Hopkins Tell You About Science" format you'll be happy with this book. If you don't need a tissue thin story draped around this information you might want to read Deshowitz's "The Malarial Capers" to get most of the same stuff without the police procedure.