Customer Reviews

The Carrier

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Jack Collier has a brilliant idea that will not only attain him his Ph.D. from Harvard, but cure cancer. However, his faculty advisor Dr. Dutton steals the ideal of training Strep A bacteria to eat tumors leaving Jack expelled for plagiarism and feeling heartbroken.

Jack flees Harvard to seek his former girlfriend who is dying from cancer. However, unbeknownst to Jack he has become infected with his cure, turning him into a modern day but deadlier Typhoid Mary. He kills anyone who comes in physical contact with him. With the FBI wanting to stop Jack before others die, while others want Jack dead before he reveals the truth, he continues his trek cross country to try to save a life.

THE CARRIER is an exciting, fast-paced medical thriller that falls a bit short of being a classic horror tale. The story line moves so fast that readers will finish it quickly, but feel very little towards the characters in the process. Even though this tale is not quite what it could have been, any one skeptical about Holden Scott's talent will realize he is a major player who needs to know speed kills interesting plots, even one that is still fun to read.

Harriet Klausner

Jack Collier invents a potential cure for cancer using the 'Streptococcus A' bacteria. Jack's professor and mentor, Michael Dutton, steals the cure and gets Jack expelled from school. Something goes wrong with the cure when Dutton tries to make it his own. People start dying and soon everybody is after Jack Collier thinking he sabotaged the cure.

Jack's run across the country to look for his ex-girlfriend who is dying from cancer(his main reason to find a cure), provides a lot of thrills. The whole novel moves at a rapid pace and is definitely one of those hard to put down books. A good biological thriller thats also a quick read

Highly recommended

I seriously considered giving this book a lower rating, but it was not horrible, just a waste of time given the plethora of well written books out there. I really don't understand all the other glowing reviews.

"The Carrier" is a badly-written, far-fetched and scientifically suspect "medical thriller." Don't get me wrong, I understand the need to "suspend belief" when reading many novels. However, the improbabilities and inaccuracies in this one hit you in the face. To top it off, the characters are two-dimensional caricatures, none of whom you end up caring about. This combination left me eager to finish the book, just so I could put it aside.

Also, will someone please tell me where the editors are these days? The text is repetitive (for example, he "explains" several times how he (a) created and (b) is going to "fix" the bacteria-gone-bad), there are disgraceful spelling errors ("affect" used improperly instead of "effect"), someone should have told him that active verbs are preferable, and the tale contains rampant blatant factual errors (yes, the author is a man, but couldn't someone tell him that 25 year-old women don't have "regular mammograms," let alone BEFORE being examined manually). These examples may sound picky, but they are representative of the sloppiness which I felt permeated this novel, and distracted from the story. Even the dates on which the events supposedly happen don't add up.

In any case, I would advise "passing" on this book unless you are really out of better books to read.

"The Carrier" by Holden Scott, St. Martin's Press, 2000.

A Fast Moving Book mixing modern gene therapy with the modern concern for the upcoming plague.

The author, Scott Holden, combines a fairly deep knowledge of modern genetic laboratories with a story of politics in the university setting. His main character is a genius Ph. D. candidate (Jack Collier) from New Jersey who ignores the jealousies on the university campus (Harvard of all places) until his advisor, Professor Dutton springs a rather large conspiracy on Jack. Jack Collier is expelled for plagiarism, while it is Dutton who had done the real plagiarism. In hopes of a Nobel Prize, Dutton steals Jack's work, which was intended as a cure for cancer. In stealing Jack's discovery, Prof. Dutton inadvertently changes the cure into a killer. Jack carries the killer/cure across the United States, while being pursued by FBI agents, one of whom is a psycho and another a Ph.D. in Biology. This is an interesting sub-plot all on its own.

The book is well written, but some discrepancies crept in: I do not think that the Boston Police Department has legal authority in Cambridge, where Harvard is located. The references to the BPD should have been to Cambridge Police. On p. 209, the editor permitted "stewardess" to be used, when today's correct usage is "flight attendant". On p. 191, the verb "affects" was used when the noun, "effects" was required. All of this is minor compared to the fast-moving story combining many modern themes.

This is the first of Holden Scotts's books that I have read. It was one of those books that I could not put down. I am aware of the ravages that strep a can do. The characters were good, however, I would like to see Dunton recieve his just cause at the end. I really wanted the book to go on another chapter or two, and not leave so much to my imagination.

I am an avid thriller/medical thriller reader, and I have been for nearly 40 years.
Skeptic is far and above the best such book I have ever read because it unleashes a new way of looking at the world. It is extremely well-writen and will leave you haunted by new concepts that are themselves thrilling beyond belief. This man makes Robin Cook look like a 3rd grader.

W. Thomas Wolfe

It was one of the best medical novels I've read in a long time. Fast moving, lots of descriptions. Okay, so some of it is a minor repeat, still great writing.

This is by far the best book I read in 2001. It was incredibly moving and taught me valuable life lessons. I would describe it as a fantasy thrill ride with a hint of Catcher in the Rye. I can't recommend it strongly enough! Keep your eye on Scott; this guy is going to be the emperor of the genre one of these days.

After you read this book, you will probably never want to use a public toilet again! When Holden Scott first started writing as Ben Mezrich, there was an obvious talent there that somehow seemed to elude critical or public acclaim. However, since changing his name and writing "Skeptic," seems his fate is a little more promising.
"The Carrier" is a by the numbers chase thriller, which has some interesting scenarios, and some truly frightening scenes (reference to the above mentioned public toilet scene..yipes!). However, so many "coincidences" occur and agent Thomas Moon is so over the top that you have to grimace at some of the cliches Scott uses. However, this is an effectively creepy and involving book, one that flows nicely and gives us another one of Mezrich/Scott's typical young medical heroes who is caught up in the bureaucratic/evil world of modern science. You can't help but admire Jack and his quest to save his beloved Angie from cancer; and you can't help but hate Michael Dutton, who cruelly steals Jack's "miracle."
A nice, engaging read and one that I recommend; it's fun.

I can't believe I actually paid good money for this book.

I'm not normally a person who stops reading books in the middle, but I could not bring myself to finish this. The author's grasp of medical science was almost nonexistent. His characters and dialogue were stock. And his depiction of life at an Ivy league university was truly laughable. (My friends who are university professors would definitely like to know how to make as much money as Scott's faculty characters. In reality, academia pays quite poorly.)

Normally I like biotech thrillers, but not this one.