Spiral

A Novel

By: Paul McEuen

Narrated by: Rob Shapiro

Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

The race is on to stop the devastating proliferation of the ultimate bioweapon: a drug-resistant fungal infection.

“A fascinating ride through a world of bioweaponry, nanoscience, murder, and international intrigue . . . one of the best debut thrillers I’ve read in a long time.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston.

ITW THRILLER AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL • NERO AWARD NOMINEE

When fungi specialist Nobel laureate Liam Connor is found dead at the bottom of one of Ithaca, New York’s famous gorges, his research collaborator, Cornell professor of nanoscience Jake Sterling, refuses to believe it was suicide. Why would one of the world’s most eminent biologists, a eighty-six-year old man in good health who survived some of the darkest days of the Second World War, have chosen to throw himself off a bridge? And who was the mysterious woman caught on camera at the scene? Soon it becomes clear that a cache of supersophisticated nanorobots—each the size of a spider—has disappeared from the dead man’s laboratory.

Stunned by grief, Jake, Liam’s granddaughter, Maggie, and Maggie’s nine-year-old son, Dylan, try to put the pieces together. They uncover ingeniously coded messages Liam left behind pointing toward a devastating secret he gleaned off the shores of war-ravaged Japan and carried for more than sixty years. What begins as a quest for answers soon leads to a horrifying series of revelations at the crossroads of biological warfare and nanoscience. At this dangerous intersection, a skilled and sadistic assassin, an infamous Japanese war criminal, and a ruthless U.S. government official are all players in a harrowing game of power, treachery, and intrigue—a game whose winner will hold the world’s fate literally in the palm of his hand.

©2011 Paul McEuen (P)2011 Random House

Critic reviews

“Spiral by Paul McEuen carries the reader on a fascinating ride through a world of bioweaponry, nanoscience, murder, and international intrigue. This gripping story, partially based on Unit 731, the biological warfare group of the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II, is one of the best debut thrillers I’ve read in a long time.” (Douglas Preston, author of Impact and The Monster of Florence)

“Spiral is an all-too-frighteningly-real tale. This is an exciting debut.” (Steve Berry, author of The Emperor’s Tomb)

“A riveting story that combines international intrigue with fascinating inventions such as the MicroCrawler, a spiderlike robot with knife-sharp legs. In more ways than one, Spiral will get under your skin.” (Mark Alpert, author of Final Theory)

Great Thriller With Mushrooms

Great reader and story. I love books that teach me along with entertainment and this did with mushrooms

A Biotech thriller that will spin your head!

Extremely enjoyable thriller. Very well written. Interesting characters and plot twists kept me enthralled.

Makes you think you should be taking notes.

Too much science and too little character and plot development made this more work than pleasure. The narrator tried to make up for it with melodrama but overdid it.

Good debut sci-fi thriller.

This is more a sci-fi thriller than a mystery, a bit like a James Bond story but focusing on nanotechnology and biological warfare. It is quite a good yarn, especially for a debut novel by a Cornell physicist and faculty member. I think it is better than some of Critchton's late novels, but of course it isn't comparable to Critchton's best (e.g., Jurassic Park.) Endings of stories that are potentially apocalyptic are usually fanciful, and this one is no exception. Needless to say, the hero (comic book superhero?) is a Cornell physicist.

Dwelling on what we usually call the Holocaust, I was not aware of the extent of Japanese war crimes, especially in Manchuria and China. All one need do is look up "Unit 731" in the wikipedia. (Shirō Ishii was the Japanese Mengele.) The author uses this real history as a springboard for his story, the book cannot be called historical fiction.

Rob Shapiro gives an exceptional narration, which enhances the enjoyment of the audiobook.

At times, the prose sounds more like a lecture than fiction, but I can forgive that in a debut novel. I wouldn't label this just "brain candy" because the book contains some interesting ideas:
In future, will synthetic biology have an even greater impact on technology and society than silicon microelectronics has had?
Will carbon nanotubes and graphene, besides leading to new materials, provide new means of electronic deception and transmission?

Great Thriller

This is one of the better suspense novels I have read in a while. The plot is well thought out, the technology well incorporated, and overall a great page turner.

Unbelievable, implausible plot

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

The plot is contrived and completely implausible. I could not suspend my disbelief at all. The characters have no personality - the character of the scientist is that he's Irish. That's it.

Would you ever listen to anything by Paul McEuen again?

Probably not.

What about Rob Shapiro’s performance did you like?

He did an excellent job of narrating. I just wish he had something better to work with.

Any additional comments?

The book seems very amateurish. More like a self-published novel than a novel that has been selected by actual editors.

Implausible

The initial premise of this book was intriguing and then the author ran out of ideas...and we moved into absurdity. At a certain point, I was just plodding along disappointed that the early ideas did not pan out. The weak plot and weak characterisations were tedious and the constant references to Cornell were yawn worthy- after thisI have no desire to visit Ithaca (although I have to admit it was not on my bucket list).

It seems odd that so many people enthusiastically embraced this book.It appears to have been written by an academic author convinced he could write good fiction, and he can't-he should stick with academic articles; he has important contributions to make to his area of expertise, but not to fiction.

Pass if you like Chrichton & Clancy

I've read Michael Chricton's Andromeda Strain, Rising Son, and Swarm. So I check the science thriller box. I've read almost everything of Clancy's so I check the techno thriller box. Unfortunately I've also read Ludlum... Apparently Paul McEuen's read all of them too. And tediously distilled out their formulaic items and plot lines. So carefully that there are just no surprises here in spite of a ton of research he's anxious to show off.

The name makes sense... Spirals are repetitive, and so's this story line.

BUT... I'd forgive McEuen all of that if he didn't insist upon branding his oft-told story with Ludlum's "I-Hate-America's-big-fat-red-neck-conservative-leaders-who-are-dangerously-stupid" sub-plots. In this case it wasn't even part of the story arc, just a box McEuen seemed compelled to check. Must be some primal need of his to prove that he's not reeeeely Clancy or Chriction. He's got nothing to prove... he's not either of those talents. I'll not read another of his books.

Boring....I feel like I'm in a botany lecture

Don't waste your time. The narration is so plodding & methodical & hard to stay with. I thought I'd support a local author but I just wasted 1 credit. Yawn.....

nice child, good scientists, evil villains

While this book provides some interesting ideas about fungus and future nanotechnology, the characters are drearily predictable and the plot relies on gruesome and unnecessary torture techniques for interest. Orchid, the assassin, is completely evil and efficient, and not really even 2 dimensional, while the main "good" characters are all very nice, well rounded, smart people. If the characters had been better written and the author let politics and science drive the story instead of falling back on such unbelievable plot devices, this could have been the kind of book that sticks with you.