The Third Pandemic [Mass Market Paperback]

Pierre Ouellette (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1997

Theorizing that a bacteria of unprecedented power will kill sixty percent of the global population within one year, Dr. Elaine Wilkes is horrified to see her prediction coming true and races to find a cure. Reprint. K. PW.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A nonhuman life form run amok energizes Ouellette's compulsively readable second thriller just as it did his first, The Deus Machine. Only here the threat is viral, not virtual. Scientist Elaine Wilkes of the Webster Foundation has used a computer simulation to predict that, within 10 years, a mutated form of the common Chlamydia psittaci virus will decimate the world's human population. The money people behind Elaine's research want to use this information to create a vaccine they can market after a few million people die. But, in the first of the novel's many coincidences, the mutated virus already exists. As Elaine enlists the aid of Seattle detective Philip Paris and public-health official David Muldane, the virus is poised to sweep from Africa to the rest of the world. The images Ouellette uses to describe viruses?tribes, explorers, colonists, merchants?are vivid and effective, and he lays out the complicated chain of events that created the killer disease clearly and succinctly. He stretches credulity, however, by making one of the links in that chain not only a Webster Foundation employee but one of Elaine's co-workers. Such contrivances mar a thriller that is otherwise excellent. Ouellette does an outstanding job of creating a world in which the potential outbreak of disease terrifies nearly everyone, from a twisted serial killer whose weapon of choice is E. Coli bacteria to a jailed gangster concerned about TB. Before they finish this gripping tale, readers, too, will have become compulsive hand-washers. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Huge Uni Corp. has more than its share of greedy, power-hungry officers and employees. It sets out to parlay its EpiSim cytoputer system into tremendous profits by first designing an antibiotic and then withholding it until a pandemic kills off enough people to raise the drug's price exorbitantly. Elaine Wilks, one of the company's good guys, does the epidemiologic work until she begins to smell not a rat but a chlamydia-infected parrot. After the disease germs break out of the research labs, they hit a small island off Africa, then spread rapidly throughout the world, creating the third pandemic (after those of Justinian and the Black Death) of the title. Helped along by Barney Cox, one of the most disagreeable thugs in recent pop literature, civilization begins to unravel. The good guys--newly widowed police detective Philip Paris chief among them--finally win, and pleased readers will be watching for Ouellette's third novel. William Beatty --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books (April 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671525360
• ISBN-13: 978-0671525361
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,094,012 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #100 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers > Technothrillers

More About the Author

Pierre Ouellette (aka Pierre Davis) entered the creative realm at age 13 as a lead guitarist for numerous bands in the Pacific Northwest, including the nationally known Paul Revere and the Raiders. He went on to play with such jazz luminaries as saxophonist Jim Pepper and bassist David Friesen, all the while composing sound tracks for short films and videos. To support his music habit, he became a freelance writer and eventually co-founded KVO, an advertising agency specializing in high technology, serving as its creative director. During this period, he wrote two novels eventually published in seven languages, with both optioned for film. His third novel, A Breed Apart, was published in 2009 to highly favorable reviews. He has also directed and produced The Loser's Club, documentary about struggling musicians, which was broadcast on public television and exhibited at numerous film festivals. Pierre resides in Portland, Oregon, where he now devotes himself exclusively to writing fiction and playing jazz guitar now and then in a little bar just down the street. He recently completed second novel for Bantam-Dell, entitled Origin Unknown, which explores the relationship between neurobiology and evil. It will be out July 2011. He is currently working on a revision of a novel he wrote 12 years ago, set in a world with a vanishing middle class, a collapsed health care system, and mounting political conflict. Sound familiar? It's titled "The Final Age: A Post-Econolyptic Account of Life Everlasting".

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars it's no "Deus Machine", July 29, 2003

By 

Daniel Ziniti (Weymouth, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Third Pandemic (Mass Market Paperback)

I picked up "The Deus Machine" in a closing sale at a local bookstore for under 2 bucks, and I couldn't have been more surprised with my find. Limiting my readings to hard science books, I never really got a taste for novels. Ouelette's first work introduced me to the world of the great hard science FICTION novel- and I was floored.

High off the buzz from "Deus," I picked up "The Third Pandemic" expecting much of the same. I was disappointed. Ouelette never really gives the characters any real life of their own. The cop with a past, the business man with godlike power, etc. are all present in the book- but they never transcend their potypical limitations.

Ouelette seems more content to describe the lives of microscopic bacteria in flowery prose than the lives of real people. By the fifth time reading a personified description of "tribes," "armies," and "expeditionary forces" of bacteria, i found myself wondering why the people were getting the short end of the stick.

While the book is truly scary in the sense that this can actually happen, it lacks the special attention to the human condition that would transform it into a novel. As it stands, its a nice book about some stuff you and i will never see that effects the lives of people we aren't sure we care about.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Third Pandemic, December 9, 1999

By 

Steve Bober (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Third Pandemic (Mass Market Paperback)

Working in the medical field and noting, from the preface, that the author had no medical background I was leery about the premise of the book. I was glad to be thoroughly proven wrong in what turned out to be a very 'drag you in and hold you till the end' book. I also found "The Third Pandemic" to be very well researched, factual and detailed (downright scary and unsettling at times). This book kept me on the edge right from the unique opener till the unexpected end (which arrived to soon for me). What can only be seen as a credit to the authors proficiency in writing, is the fact that he was able to pen such an engrossing book without resorting to blatent sexual liasons or over graphic descriptions of killings. I now eagerly look forward to reading Pierre Oullette's first book, "The Deus Machine", and any future titles he authors.

Other authors I enjoy: Eric V. Lustbader

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A thrilling book difficult to put down, March 17, 2008

By 

Judy K. Polhemus "Book Collector" (Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Third Pandemic (Mass Market Paperback)

Bubonic plague of the Medieval Period was the first pandemic, the Spanish Influenza of the early 21st century was the second pandemic, a merger of Chlamydia and strep creates "The Third Pandemic by Pierre Ouellette, a book first published twelve years ago.

Because this new disease has the power to kill half the world's population, it is given the placement of major character in the novel. The writer first describes it in terms of soldiers quiet after a defeat (the antibiotic tetracycline, part of a drug cocktail that kills most infections). When it merges with strep chromosomes, Chlamydia becomes a new entity, one resistant to all antibiotics. This merger takes place when the male human carrier has sex with a woman carrying strep/chlamydia. These viruses also mate to create an unstoppable infection ready to charge as an army and wreak havoc on the world.

Details of epidemiology, computer simulation of a spreading disease, the formula for a vacination against this disease, a health official carrying a split with reality inside his head, an amoral career criminal who rides the wave of lawlessness to create a new identity as superpower leader in the void of effective leadership during the pandemic, a police detective with an abiding moral consciousness, a female doctor whose own moral dictates recognize morality in others--all parts combine to become a unified whole in presenting a what-if apocalyptic world sure to come.

In a world of flesh-eating infections, Mad Cow disease, and SARS, a new concomitant is not surprising. There is a vaccine formula, but not a vaccine. The fact that corruption abounds in mid-level positions, as well as highest levels, the attempt to keep secret the formula for a vaccine, to hold off until monetary gain is bulging with greed, will prevent the making of this life-saving drug. No matter, the disease appears and decimates the population even as these greed-hogs maneuver for their own monetary promotion. Even as this happens, the criminal element is swifter and assumes power to terrorize and manipulate.

The two righteous characters, Detective Paris and Dr. Elaine Wilkes, come together through odd circumstance and in the line of duty, to do what is available to them to fight this pandemic. It takes its toll and wears itself out, as with all diseases. The ending is interesting, but it is the story of people, the journey of courage, the path of the disease that are the essence of the novel. What can be done, who does it, who are the heroes scattered throughout the story? All these questions determine the outcome and success of an apocalyptic novel. Frankly, I wouldn't close the book at night. I kept reading and reading and....