Reaper

The techno-thriller genre's newest star, whom People magazine likened to Michael Chrichton himself, unleashes in Reaper the ultimate techno-killer -- a biological virus that's spread electronically.

In Boston, nine lawyers ona conference call suddenly convulse with pain, turn chalk white and die. In Vermont, a young woman watching her favorite sitcom meets the same grisly fate, as does a group of sewer workers in Washington, D.C. Whatever has killed these people is spreading fast and the task of eradicating it falls to young virologist Samantha Craig and paramedic Nick Barnes, whose brilliant surgical career was ruined by a crippling hand injury.

When Nick and Samantha discover that the virus, named Reaper, is spread through TVs and PCs, they realize that the information superhighway will become a killing field, with tens of millions dead, unless they can root Reaper out. Their search employs a dazzling array of real-life wizardry, from Mylar body paint to Stealth helicopters to CIA-bred swarms of insects. At the core of Reaper's madness, they find a suavely megalomaniacal, up-from-the-slums, high-tech billionaire; and a high-powered cabal that will do anything to save the world from technology, even if that means annihilating the world.

Drawing on the latest medical and technological research and folding in deftly realized characters, Ben Mezrich crafts a relentless, page-turning tale that is at once cutting-edge and utterly believable.