Customer Reviews

Carriers

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Before even reading Richard Preston's THE HOT ZONE, I just had to get a hold of Patrick Lynch's CARRIERS. This scientific thriller, weaving love, fear, worries and hatred into the plot, kept me in constant suspense which made it an exciting fast-paced read. With an airborne epidemic "one hundred more times more contagious than Ebola" (USA Today), breaking out in the Indonesian rain forests, only a team of American Microbiological experts are sent to investigate its source and try to keep it under control haphazardly, but only corpses and infected natives, who die in a matter of hours, are discovered with no answers to how the core of this mysterious plague is being spread. Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone in search of a horrifying heart-racing, yet compelling read.

I heard this book was great. I had high expectations and (to my surprise) they were thoroughly met. This is the scariest thriller of a bio/medical kind I've ever read, and I'd only hesitate to recommend it to people with weak hearts. I was gripped completely.

Patrick Lynch's "Carriers" seduces unrelentingly with its incredible chapter by chapter cliffhanging style. It kept me up all night, literally unable to sleep until I finished it. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the precarious relationship we have with our primitive ecosystems or who is fascinated with that voracious, unseen, world conquering monster that is the virus. This is a truly frightening book, that brings home the personal nature of a pandemic event with just a hint as to its secret carefully dangled in the context of a brief encounter. Everyone I've shown this book to, after reading only a few pages has gone out and bought the paperback for themselves. I eagerly await Lynch's next foray into the cardiac wild. Doug Kennedy

I read this book in what for me was record time, and couldn't believe when I was done that it was more than 400 pages long. The author drew me into the terrifying world of the 'BL4' virus quite expertly and kept me there until the last page. Part of his skill was to make me care about the characters, and keep up the surprises all the way through. A great read.

Patrick Lynch makes a stunning debut with 'Carriers'.

Carriers sports a very complicated storyline (you will find it hard to summarize in under five pages) and huge cast of characters (one of the largest I've seen in a thriller) rather well.

The plot, at its root, simply involves an epidemic disease spreading across the Indonesian island of Sumetra, as well as outbreaks in both Deleware and London.

However, Carriers is really a character-driven story, especially for the first two-thirds or so. Fortunately, Lynch seems to have a knack for making very realistic, likeable (or unlikable) characters. Even the secondary characters, and there are a lot of them, are fully developed. You become attached to them, and if one happens to die or become injured, you'll probably experience a strong emotional response (sadness, unless you're a sadist), which is a sure sign of excellent characterization.

The first third of Carriers is really a very long introduction. It was, however, my favorite part of the book, especially the Deleware outbreak. The suspense in Carriers sneaks up on you; the introduction may seem at first long and drawn out, but trust me, if you can read it for half an hour you'll realize that, no matter how hard you may try, you just can't put the book down. Another hour and your knuckles will be turning white, but still you will be unable to let go.

The only real problem here is the huge cast of characters. There's a lot going on in the first hundred pages, and dozens of characters to remember. I often found myself flipping back twenty or thirty pages to find out who someone was. There's also a complicated storyline; this is handled well, but if you some how summon the ability to put the book for the night, you may find yourself lost in the morning when you try to pick up where you left off. Unless you have an excellent memory, unlike myself.

It's a lot to deal with early in the book, but things soon calm down. ABout a third of the way into the novel, the second of the two major protagonists, Carmen Travis, is introduced (the other is Holly Becker). Things calm down quite a bit, character-wise, and the plot-line begins to take over.

Over the course of the rest of the novel, an overly engrossing (and surprising) storyline is developed. There are dozens of sub-plots in Carriers, almost as many as there are characters. It is truly epic. But over the course of the last third of the novel, one of those seemingly rather unimportant subplots comes to the forefront. The plot becomes much deeper and more complex then one would ever guess it would be while reading the first part of Carriers. It is very well done; the introduction of the sub-plot is done subtley and without great fanfare, but it slowly evolves util it becomes dominating and completely engrosing. Just like the characters, the plotline of Carriers ends up in an entirely different location from the one it originally intended to go.

The climax, which is unexpectedly violent, is quite well-done, though perhaps a little over-the-top. It certainly comes as a surprise, but seems strangely fitting.

However, the conclusion is a let down. There's no follow-up, no time to catch your breath before the novel ends. One moment you're in a fast-paced, thrilling, adreneline-pumping scene, and then all of a sudden you're putting the book away and shutting off the lamp. Carriers leaves a sort of aftertaste, you won't be able to stop thinking about it. It will leave you wanting more, but not in a good way. Most of your thoughts will regard trying to figure out what happened to make it end so damned quickly.

Also, Carriers is a very graphic and sometimes disturbing novel. It is certainly not for the faint of heart (or, for that matter, the weak of stomach).

More terrifying is it's implications. It will certainly make you think for a long while after reading, and as one reviewer put it, you will never look at a sneeze in the same way again. Not reccomended for hypocondriacs.

Just one last thing I'd like to mention is Mr. Lynch's knack for making dramatic scenes, almost to the point of being overwhelming. He often does this through subtlety. One scene that comes to mind involves an Indonesian official marking black skull and crossbones on a map to indicate where the disease has struck -- his own city.

In conclusion, Carriers is a great read. Though confusing at first, it will engross the reader through its plot twists and turns. The climax is unexpected and very well-crafted. It is dramatic and thrilling, and offers a huge cast of well-rounded characters. Despite a disappointing ending, it will keep you talking for weeks afterwards.

Highly reccomended.

I read this book for school in place of The Hot Zone because I had already read it. I thought that Richard Preston had done a fine job on The Hot Zone, but once I finished Carriers, I changed my mind completely. The amount of detail that Patrick Lynch added made this book so life-like that it got scary. This book was amazingly well written, and is better, I think, than even Hot Zone itself. Read this if you want a non-stop read that'll have you gasping for air at the end!

Patrick Lynch tied in the introduction with the mysterious document and the children who infected the greater portion of Indonesia brilliantly. The plot kept twisting and turning with surprises, such as the Indonesian commando squad attacking the team and one of the team getting bitten by the monkey, keeping my interest throughout the whole book.

This book goes through Love, worry, and hate mixed with fear. It discusses a fictional virus that terrorizes the Indonesion rainforests and all its people.Special agents sent to investigate this virus and they got results, but no clues on how the disease was spread. How this disease is spread, they don't know, its a matter of time before the world falls into this chilling disease.It's spooky, but adventurous. I highly suggest this book to another who likes adventure.

Maybe a bit flawed in some places but overall a great read. Much more solid then Crighton's stuff which starts off glorious and ends up as a cat and mouse chase with one word dialogs. Lynch takes a subject, an ebola-like outbreak, which in itself seems so boring and trite, but instead of pumping out the same old gel, he gives us a solid detective story, working with the bioligists in hopes of finding its source. Not classic literature. Not a classic novel. But in its genre, a very fine piece of work.

In this book there are many points of rising action and mini-climaxes. This book has many suspensful parts. Carriers also contains many scientifical references which you can learn from as you read. This book also shows the way diseases travel, infect, and kill people and the way scientists search for answers. The few things I disliked about this book were that there were some long and boring parts which could have been cut out to make a more lively and gripping book. Carriers could have been a little bit shorter and still be as or more effective. I would reccomend this book because it is a very suspenful book to a person who doesn't mind hearing about people dying gruesom deaths and also about disease raveging people's bodies. I would also recommend it because it shows a look into a scientist's life who has to deal with the destruction of her family's life throught the contagious disease.