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Dead on Arrival

A Novel

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

A mysterious disorder threatens to destroy the world in this high-concept thriller from Pulitzer Prize—winning New York Times reporter Matt Richtel, which combines medical science, cutting-edge technology, and breathtaking suspense in the vein of Michael Crichton.

An airplane lands at a desolate airport in a remote Colorado ski town. On board, Dr. Lyle Martin, a world-class infectious disease specialist, is brusquely awakened to shocking news: everyone not on the plane appears to be dead. A lethal new kind of virus may have surfaced, threatening our survival, and now Martin—one of the most sought after virologists on the planet until his career took a precipitous slide—is at the center of the investigation.

The symptoms are the most confounding the experienced doctor has ever seen. Is it the work of terrorists? A biological attack? A natural occurrence? As word of the deadly sickness spreads, panic leads to violence and chaos. Armed and terrified partisans and patriots, stoked by technology and social media, have dug in, unknowingly creating fertile ground for the deadly syndrome Dr. Martin has begun to identify.

As the globe begins to unravel and paranoia and hatred take hold, Martin is forced to face a question as terrifying as this syndrome itself: is the world better left unsaved?

Moving at a breakneck pace from the labs of the Centers for Disease Control to the secret campus of Google X to the marble halls of the Capitol, Dead on Arrival is a brilliantly imaginative, high-concept thriller that draws on Matt Richtel's years of science and technology reporting for the New York Times, and establishes him as one of the premier technological thriller writers working today.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from June 26, 2017
      Richtel (The Doomsday Equation) grabs his audience by the throat from the start of this intelligent nail-biter, which riffs on the story line of The Langoliers, a Stephen King novella. Despite the absence of any ground communications, Eleanor Hall, a Delta Air Lines captain, safely lands her aircraft in Steamboat Springs, Colo., only to find that everyone outside the plane is dead. Desperate to understand what’s going on, she recruits the help of a passenger, doctor Lyle Martin, an expert on infectious diseases, whose career is on the decline. As Eleanor, Lyle, and her first officer, Jerry Weathers, try to determine how best to keep things calm in the plane’s cabin, they are further rattled when they discover that almost all the passengers have also suddenly died from no apparent cause. The narrative flashes back three years to an encounter Lyle had with Jackie Badger, whose life he once saved and whose gift at seeing hidden patterns has made her a valued asset for her employer, Google. Back in the present, Eleanor and company must battle a lethal virus that threatens all of humanity. Compelling characters that readers will become emotionally invested in complement the clever plotting. Agent: Laurie Liss, Sterling Lord Literistic.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This audiobook is not an easy listen. Jonathan Yen does a great job narrating, giving the characters distinct personalities and building tension with his voice alone. But the author's scattershot writing style will have some listeners checking to see if their player is on shuffle. There's a great story--getting to it is the problem. The hero is Dr. Lyle Martin, a genius in the field of infectious disease whose life has been one tragedy after another. Now he's forced to confront a new kind of threat that could destroy humankind. But the frequent flashbacks that pop up out of nowhere are annoying and confusing, forcing the listener to try to piece the plot together. M.S. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
    • Kirkus

      In a thriller with the gut-wrenching tension of a doomsday countdown clock, Richtel (The Doomsday Equation, 2015, etc.) goes high concept, viewing worldwide connectivity through cell-level immunology. Observing our ever connected social media world, a crazy genius obsesses over the idea that "ubiquitous transmissions had the impact of putting people into kind of a catatonic state" and decides to press pause. After the rogue Google contractor recodes a good idea for nefarious purposes, the story begins when world-renowned infectious disease specialist Dr. Lyle Martin heads for a Colorado conference. Martin's been lured to the site of the wacko's beta test. From airport baggage handler on down, he discovers people comatose in midseizure. Puzzling enough, but he later comes awake home in San Francisco with the sketchiest of memories of the Colorado visit. Martin's a well-drawn character, a driven, obsessed man so smart his marriage collapsed because of his passion for his work. Supporting characters include his fellow witnesses to the Colorado episode, the female airline captain and her gun-toting first officer. Martin's ex-wife is another cast member done up in enviable style. The villain, not so much--standard Freudian twisted childhood warping into an Adam and Eve fantasy--all motivated by a god complex, because "people are gorging on ideas that reinforce their political and social views...losing their ability to empathize, cooperate, compromise." Toss in a massive march on Washington by gun owners worried about the Second Amendment, and things threaten to wobble toward social chaos. The theme is as current as tomorrow's news, but the pace sometimes outpaces clarity. More science faction than science fiction, this is a novel requiring close reading to comprehend, and fear.

      COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (Online Review)

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  • English

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