Life changed for Jacob (Jake) Parker three years ago and he's been searching for peace and solitude but even that has evaded him. He's torn from his self-imposed isolation when he gets a call from Derek Briggs, the Director of ICE, about an unusual job. Even though Jake has left his former position as a detective with the Boston PD and military service behind, Briggs wants him to solve a case outside of the normal channels. The situation involves the deaths of a married couple who apparently entered the US illegally from Canada but were detained at a facility in Vermont where they got sick and quickly expired. Briggs is concerned because whatever killed them might be a the start of a new pandemic. He engages Jake as a third-party investigator outside of the bureaucracy of the US Government to avoid speculation and panic if this is indeed something to be concerned about. Jake knows he can't handle this on his own and makes a call to an old friend, Beau Shaw, his ex-partner and asks him to help and also requests him to find another person with infectious disease expertise. Enter Dr. Eliza Mendoza, a teacher of microbiology and parasitology at Syracuse. The goal is for the team to make sure the infection that killed the couple wasn't introduced on purpose and that it is contained. Jake thinks outside the box, and they hit the ground running. But what if there is more to this than the emergence of a new killer disease? NO SPOILERS.
I love thrillers but especially those that are medical in nature. I'm a sucker for a good pandemic novel and I tried to hold off reading this until closer to publication date, but couldn't resist. Although this is a very quick read, easy to finish in a couple of hours, I was a bit disappointed. The premise was so interesting but the narrative got bogged down and focused more on politics and the debate about immigration than about an epidemic. Very predictable bad guys and with the requisite romance angle, I was left feeling let down and don't think I got what I came for after all. I'm not sure if I'll read another in this series.
Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for this e-book ARC to read and review.
This is the first in a new series featuring Jake Parker.
Genre -- Mystery/Thriller - vaguely medical
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