Please note Pandemic is a direct sequel to Infected and Contagious. Read them first to avoid potential infection/spoilers in the following review.  To some, Doctor Margaret Montoya is a hero—a brilliant scientist who saved the human race from an alien intelligence determined to exterminate all of humanity. To others, she’s a monster—a mass murderer single-handedly responsible for the worst atrocity ever to take place on American soil.  All Margaret knows is that she’s broken. The blood of a million deaths is on her hands. Guilt and nightmares have turned her into a shut-in, too mired in self-hatred even to salvage her marriage, let alone be the warrior she once was. But she is about to be called into action again. Because before the murderous intelligence was destroyed, it launched one last payload — a soda can–sized container filled with deadly microorganisms that make humans feed upon their own kind.  That harmless-looking container has languished a thousand feet below the surface of Lake Michigan, undisturbed and impotent . . . until now. A new Scott Sigler novel being published is always a cause for much rejoicing here at The Eloquent Page. Ever since I first stumbled across Infected, I’ve been a fan. I’ll freely…

For centuries, their race has lived beneath the earth, emerging only at night, to feed quietly on the dregs of society and slip back into the shadows. But now their time has come – their time to rise up from their hiding places and take back what is theirs. San Francisco homicide detective Bryan Klauser is supposed to be hunting a serial killer. But a serial killer couldn’t be responsible for the seemingly impossible DNA evidence the crime-scene techs keep finding – or for the gory, strangely prophetic dreams Bryan keeps having. And what about the connections he keeps finding to a century-old cult – and his superiors’ sudden reluctance to give him the answers he needs about cases that should be dead and buried? Ultimately, Klauser’s investigations will reveal a race of killers who’ve long lurked beneath San Francisco’s streets – and are preparing to take back the city. Klauser is the only man who can stop them, because . . . he might not be a man at all. It’s a constant surprise how much external forces influence the enjoyment of my reading. Nocturnal is a perfect example of this. I recently started watching The Wire (I know, I know,…

“Secret Experiment. Tiny Island. Big Mistake” At its most basic level, the story in Ancestor by Scott Sigler could be described as a number of chases. Firstly, we have the US government trying to track down renegade bio-engineering company Genada, as they try to operate above the law. Then we have the story of evil predators chasing people around an inhospitable island in the dead of winter. It would be really easy to right off this novel as just that, but I strongly urge you not to. Ancestor is so much more and is worthy of your time. What the author has done is to take a simple enough premise and add some welcome additional depth. The core of the novel is the topical subject of genetic manipulation. Should humans tinker with nature? Is the quest for profit enough of a reason to fool around with things we don’t fully understand? On the island of Black Manitou, the characters are split into three groups. Firstly, there is a group of scientists who are attempting to create a creature that can be a used as a universal organ donor. Using genetic engineering they are in a race against time to create…