Book Review: The First Horseman

In the era of Avian Flu, the First Horseman is a chilling tale. The reappearance of the 1918 Spanish Flu near a North Korean bioweapons facility causes alarms to go off in Washington. The hunt for a potential vaccine leads to an unlikely venue: an Arctic mining town where victims of the flu were buried in permafrost in 1918. These victims, provided they never thawed, would still have virus material in their lungs. This material could be harvested for use in a vaccine.

When American scientists finally reach the frozen town, they're startled to find an unsavory surprise awaits them. And things go downhill from there as an investigative journalist, the intelligence community, and other parties all race to get the vaccine before a biological attack is launched.

Yes, you've got predictable plot twists in store as well as the conventional, whoa-is-that-guy-psychotic criminal mastermind. And, true, you know how everything will turn out in the end. But in between, a fair amount of excellent research detail and some chilling analogs to today's world of H5N1-brand Avian Flu make Case's book both highly relevant and truly ominous.