Dead on Arrival

A Novel

By: Matt Richtel

Narrated by: Jonathan Yen

Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

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. Onboard, 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.

©2017 Matt Richtel (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

A Possible Fate

Mystery involving high tech process that freezes whole populations in their tracks. Characters are cardboard but the plot mechanism is intriguing though stretched too long. The reader is good but not great on female voices.

An engaging mystery from beginning to end

Good and bad, hero and villain, dream or reality, virus or immune response...Richtel deftly paints a world where you will constantly question which is which. Enjoyable thriller that sometimes was uncomfortable too close to real life.

i suppose it's okay...

yeah... it's okay... I was just expecting... more, I guess. of course, i realize that it MAY just be me, and NOT the book
this sobriety-thing is just awful, and I don't recommend it... for anyone... well, except for brain surgeons... Air Traffic Controllers... oh... and Proctologists.
Throughout the book... I kept feeling this crescendo building, and building, and building... but for me, there was just no pay-off for the time invested. But... like I said... I was fairly sober, too.
Anyway- if I had it to do over... I wouldn't.

Must read, not listen

Definitely one of those books that you should actually read if you can rather than listen to.

good story...slow in places

I did struggle to finish...the first few chapters were painfully slow and on my first attempt I stopped there. finally came back to this and finished. Great story, just drawn out. Lots of vague similarities to current events.

Slower than an arthritic slug.

Author loves his own words too much. Takes way too long getting the story out. A great idea that failed in the execution.

Was this actually written by an adult?

I can’t decide what it is about this book... the fact I found the story ridiculous and the dialogue completely inane considering the circumstances, or that the narrator sounds like he is reading a Dr Seus book. Sadly, Jonathan Yen’s reading and narration of this book makes me think that I am listening to “Horton Hears a Who”. And even more interesting is that I have no children and have never read or listened to “Horton Hears a Who”... It just keeps going through my head. If I did however, I imagine this is exactly what it would sound like. I actually fell asleep for an hour while listening with my earbuds in and the story had not moved forward at all. I have never written a book and I don’t pretend I have the talent to ever do so, but I feel this book lacked the basics. I actually PURCHASED this for over $19.00! I should have listened to the other reviewers. I doubt if I will finish this. Maybe another narrator would have made it more interesting?

Really whacko story line.

A real struggle to read!!! Definitely a strange mind wrote this!!! I hated it. This author is off my list.

The basic premise of this novel is absurd!

The basic premise of this book is absurd and it goes on way too long. Dragging and dragging the story out for no apparent reason. Characters not very engaging or authentic. Hence, I do not recommend it. I read Matt Richtel’s book A Deadly Wandering and thought it excellent. So this was very disappointing.