Spiral

A Novel

De: Paul McEuen

Narrado por: Rob Shapiro

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.

Reseñas de la Crítica

Advance praise for Spiral

“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

“Fast-paced and suspenseful . . . McEuen, a leader in nanoscience research at Cornell, makes unsettling use of recent developments in the field. . . . After you’ve finished the book, try not hearing [the MicroCrawlers] go tink tink tink in the night. . . . exciting and unsettling."—Kirkus Reviews

“It’s hard to reckon with the realization that a prominent scientist in a cutting-edge field, writing his first novel in his “spare time,” has created what may be the most gripping and engrossing thriller this reviewer has ever read in almost 50 years of thriller reading…[Paul McEuen] wisely writes about what he knows…but also shows a true gift for plotting, pace, characterization, and writerly clarity…and remarkably, he makes [his] ideas accessible to typical thriller aficionados. A stunning achievement.”
– Booklist, starred review

Top notch science thriller

I liked the characters in this story, I liked the narration, the action is fast and the story is well written. The science is fun and the author brings it to the reader in an enjoyable and accurate fashion. The story does remind one of crichtons but the author has his own style and the reviews that pan this book as not standing up to Michael C's almost had me passing on this book, that would have been a mistake as this is a good book it is well written and fun and worth your time, this author has his own style and deserves to be read.

Great Book!<br />

Recommended by my son who lives in Ithaca. Fantastic book. I am looking forward to reading more books by Paul McEuen.

Great science fiction (not fantasy)

Good science fiction is hard to find. Too much of the genre has been contaminated by fantasy. I like to read a book where I understand the laws of physics (or at least most of them). This book proposes some plausible scientific developments and weaves a skillful thriller story around them. The setting for the book comes from McEuen's home town of Ithaca, NY and the surrounding area. This area has enough interesting features that the author did not have to invent any.

I'm waiting for McEuen's next book.

Better than most

The other reviewer's are right. This is a taut, well thought out, well written novel. Enjoyed it right to the end. Good storyteller. Yes, it is slightly repetitive. But it is an intelligent thriller, and these are hard to find. Well worth your time.

Predictable

A lot of sterling reviews for this book and I guess for the genre it is well done. The scientific background and information was certainly interesting but the story, sadly, was predictable. Well read, though, by Rob Shapiro who handles the accents well.