Robert Ludlum and Gayle Lynds: The Hades Factor

(HarperCollins)

$29.95

Review: Gilbert Wong

Ludlum is the J.K. Rowling of the thriller world, the genuine gorilla able to lay waste to the sales of lesser writers with a click of his cursor.

This tale owes much to the real story of epidemiologists at the US Centre for Disease Control, first told by Richard Preston in The Hot Zone. A haemorraghic fever is striking victims down.

Because this is a Ludlum novel there will be a psychopath out there somewhere planning death on a grand scale and conspiring with those in power.

I preferred Preston's version - it was real, and more terrifying because of it.