Plague Maker
Tim Downs
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2006 West Bow Press
ISBN: 1595540229

An FBI counterterrorism agent is contacted by an aging Chinese man with a story too terrible to ignore.

Nathan Donovan is involved in a case where a thousand dead fleas are discovered near the body of a murdered man in a trendy art gallery. When Donovan compares photos taken during a viewing gala with those of the crime scene, there's a glaring absence: an ancient urn on a pedestal. Even when Donovan finds out the urn is one of several fakes now turning up in New York, he isn't particularly worried until he receives an overseas phone call & learns that some wars never end.

Meanwhile, Dr. Macy Monroe is called out to a stand-off between the NYPD, the FBI & a young Arab man in a grocery store in an upscale Jewish neighborhood. When Monroe catches sight of a child waving in a window above the store, the tension ratchets up by several degrees. Does the terrorist know he's not alone in the building? Time for Monroe to brush up her Arabic & remember that the young man with a bomb strapped around his chest is some mother's son.

Far more able to cope with flying bullets & deadly assignations than the trials of his marriage & the death by cancer of his son, Donovan is a husk of a man surviving on work, anger & adrenaline. Macy Monroe his ex, is a respected professor & hostage negotiator with whom he hasn't talked in over a year. Now, his superior determines that she's the best person to work with the old man who knows the who & the why of the fleas, & their long & deadly history with the ubiquitous rat population of the world, & in particular New York City.

Li, born in China & married during WWII, has lived in Britain most of his eighty years. He tells Donovan about a young Japanese scientist assigned to a secret laboratory complex in Manchuria where all manner of plagues were once brewed. About that dreadful day when Li had been hurrying home to his wife & village when he stumbled upon a scene of death. From the sole survivor he learns that a few days before a Japanese plane had dropped grains & bits of clothing all over his village, after which every living thing began dying horribly. Where is his beloved Jin? A troop of Japanese soldiers all covered in strange clothes had, that very day, driven in & taken her away to a barn on the outskirts. When Li finds his wife she is strapped to a chair & the most foul surgery had been performed on her. He runs out to the leaving Japanese, tears off the protective hood of the one in charge, & stares at his face, memorizing it. It was Sato Matsushita.

Finding him again became Li's mission in life, except he'd lost track of him once he'd disappeared behind the Iron Curtain. Li is now certain that the fleas in the art gallery are the “fingerprint” of Matsushita's research, & that he is about to take his revenge on America for bombing Hiroshima & killing his sister, all those decades ago.

How will the plague be delivered, & when? How will the Americans thwart this terrorist plot, who will help them, & what does the old ship Divine Wind, now steaming into New York harbor, have to do with it?

Tim Downs is fast becoming known as “The Insect Author” & with Plague Maker he's gotten a whole lot better & broader in scope. This is a compelling, multi-layered thriller about revenge & forgiveness, cleverness & wisdom, unthinkable evil & unspeakable tragedy, old men with memories & missions to fulfil & young workaholics with broken hearts & stifled souls, & some fascinating history about biological warfare in China, Japan & the USSR. It is also about how different cultures tell the stories of their memories.

An outstanding mix of action & history with a dash of humor. I could not put it down &, as with all this author's books, learnt a lot.

Don't miss these from Tim Downs:
Chop Shop
Shoofly Pie
(04/23/06)

Rebecca