THE BLOOD ARTISTS

THE BLOOD ARTISTS
Author: Chuck Hogan
Harper Paperback Printing: June 2009
ISBN: 978-0-380-73146-6
$7.99
Avon Books Paperback Printing: January 1999
William Morrow Hardcover Printing: April 1998
ISBN: 978-0-380-73146-6
368 pages
Fiction, Science Fiction, Action-adventure
　
THE BLOOD ARTISTS is one of those unusual books that actually has three first printings within eleven years. I was wondering how that happened and why. Personally, I wonder if there are discussions about turning this book into a movie.
In the last week of December in 2010, two workers at the Bureau of Disease Control in Atlanta
are continuing their research over the Christmas vacation period. Peter Maryk and Stephen
Pierce into discovering how to manufacture clean and usable blood to meet the constant
demands of shortage at the blood banks. Eventually, they even win the Nobel Prize in
medicine for discovering how to create clean, usable blood that can be stored for longer
periods of time than regular blood. The two researchers, who used to be best friends, have
gone their separate ways while continuing their own battles against disease.
Reading this book in 2009, is a little bothersome with the story beginning in the last week of December 2010. There is an outbreak of a disease that is similar to smallpox in a remote village in Africa, near one of the Pygmy villages. The disease seems to be a virus, similar to smallpox, but originating in a radioactive cave containing uranium. What is unusual about this particular virus is that it also spreads to almost every living thing, plant or animal. There seems to be no successful treatment for this disease as Peter and Stephen attempt to help the villagers. When it is finally obvious that there is no cure available, the two abandon the village and give the orders to destroy and seal those in it. They will die soon anyway and this is the only solution to containing and controlling this disease without exposing others to it.
Then this disease appears a view years later in a small-town in Connecticut. People don’t want towns in this country to be firebombed. How do you contain it now?
This is a book that you cannot put down. The story haunts you. I did question some of the factual events that have happened in the past twelve years which obviously were not the route in the real world. Even those points though, worked in this book. I did find the book enthralling and wanting to validate some of the new research in the areas of disease. I also enjoyed thinking about the possible connections in the story to make this a logical sequence.
Despite having three separate first printings, it is a good book and one I would recommend.
Teri Davis July 4, 2009
For more reviews by Teri Davis go to her blog at: Http://ReviewsbyTeri.blogspot.com
To contact Teri Davis please e-mail to BookReviewer@cox.net